Three former U.S. intelligence and military officials have admitted providing sophisticated computer hacking technology to the United Arab Emirates and agreed to pay nearly $1.7 million to resolve criminal charges in an agreement that the U.S. Justice Department described Tuesday as the first of its kind.

The defendants — Marc Baier, Ryan Adams and Daniel Gericke — are accused of working as senior managers at a UAE-based company that conducted hacking operations on behalf of the government. Prosecutors say the men provided hacking and intelligence-gathering systems that were used to break into computers in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

Egypt's president has met with Libya's parliament speaker and a powerful military commander as Cairo pushes for the withdrawal of foreign forces and the holding of elections as scheduled in December.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi received Speaker Aguila Saleh and Gen. Khalifa Haftar, commander of the self-styled Libyan Arab Armed Forces, in Cairo, the Egyptian leader's office said in a statement.

Authorities in Greece Tuesday opened an investigation into the crash of a private plane from Israel that killed a prosecution witness in the corruption trial of former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Haim Geron, a former senior official at Israel's ministry of communications, and his wife Esther were killed in the crash late Monday off the island of Samos. The Israeli Foreign Ministry identified the victims, both aged 69, adding that consular officials and the ministry were working with the family to return the bodies. Geron was one of more than 300 witnesses that prosecutors listed for Netanyahu's trial on corruption charges. He is on trial for allegedly accepting expensive gifts from wealthy associates, allegations he denies. Greece's Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Board is investigating the causes of the crash, officials said Tuesday.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who traveled to the Gulf last week but did not visit Saudi Arabia, still hopes to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Pentagon said Monday.

Russia's Vladimir Putin and Syria's Bashar Assad have met in Moscow to discuss the cooperation between their armies and how to continue operations to gain control of the last rebel-held areas in Syria, state media in Damascus reported on Tuesday.

The Monday night meeting between the two presidents was the first since they held a summit in the Syrian capital in January last year. Syrian state TV described it as a long meeting and said the two were later joined by Syria's foreign minister and Russia's defense minister to discuss mutual relations and fighting terrorism.

An Israeli defense contractor on Monday unveiled a remote-controlled armed robot it says can patrol battle zones, track infiltrators and open fire. The unmanned vehicle is the latest addition to the world of drone technology, which is rapidly reshaping the modern battlefield.

Proponents say such semi-autonomous machines allow armies to protect their soldiers, while critics fear this marks another dangerous step toward robots making life-or-death decisions.

Israel's Naftali Bennett was to meet President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Monday, on the first visit to Egypt by an Israeli premier in over a decade, the presidency said.

Sisi was to host Bennett in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to discuss "efforts to revive the peace process" between the Israelis and Palestinians, presidential spokesman Bassam Radi said in a statement.

The Middle Eastern State of Qatar, which has played an outsized role in Afghanistan since the Taliban's sweep to power on Aug. 15, has sent a delegation to Kabul. It is the highest diplomatic level delegation to visit the Afghan capital since the Taliban announced their interim Cabinet.

Taliban political spokesman Suhail Shaheen tweeted Sunday about the high-level delegation, saying it included Sheikh Mohammad bin Abdur Rahman Al-Thani, the deputy prime minister who is also Qatar's foreign minister.

Israel's foreign minister has proposed improving living conditions in Gaza in exchange for calm from the enclave's Hamas Islamist leaders, aiming to solve "never-ending rounds of violence" as the two sides exchanged fresh fire over the weekend.

The plan, which includes infrastructure and employment benefits, aims to show Palestinians in the Israeli-blockaded enclave that Hamas's campaign of violence against Israel is "why they live in conditions of poverty, scarcity, violence and high unemployment, without hope", Yair Lapid said Sunday.

The badly damaged old section of the southern Syrian city of Daraa, which until recently was held by opposition gunmen, appeared to slowly return to some sense of normalcy Sunday.

The capture of Daraa al-Balad marked another victory for President Bashar Assad, whose forces now control much of the country 10 years after Syria's civil war began.