The local unit of Al-Qaida's Syrian branch in the tinderbox town of Albu Kamal on the Iraqi border pledged loyalty Wednesday to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, giving ISIL control over both sides of the frontier.

The move is also significant because it reflects how ISIL is fast gaining the upper hand in eastern Syria, where it has been locked in combat with fighters from Al-Qaida franchise Al-Nusra Front and allied local rebels virtually all year.

Four makeshift bombs exploded within minutes of each other at three Cairo metro stations during morning rush hour on Wednesday, wounding at least two people, Egyptian police said.

One bomb went off at the station of Ghamra, in central Cairo, while the others occurred at Shubra el-Kheima and Hadayek al-Kobba on the outskirts of the capital, a police official told Agence France Presse.

Qatar, facing growing corruption allegations over the 2022 World Cup and a backlash over Islamists it supported, finds itself isolated a year after its young emir acceded to the throne.

But analysts say the gas-rich emirate could bounce back by being "pragmatic" and capitalizing on a legacy of aggressive diplomacy and media clout represented by its Al-Jazeera television network.

Dozens of Palestinian prisoners who had refused food for 62 days have suspended their hunger strike after reaching a deal with the Israel Prisons Service, their lawyer told AFP.

The prisoners began refusing food on April 24 in protest at being held by Israel without charge or trial under a controversial procedure called administrative detention, which can be indefinitely extended for years.

Intensified bombing in Sudan's war-torn South Kordofan may be part of an attempt to starve the population, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

The air raids in recent weeks are "unprecedented in their scale and impact," the London-based watchdog said, citing human rights monitors.

The Israeli air force carried out 12 raids on the Gaza Strip overnight after militants fired more rockets at southern Israel, Palestinian security sources said Wednesday.

The attacks struck training grounds used by Palestinian militants, leaving two people lightly injured, they told Agence France Presse.

The first of up to 300 U.S. military advisers began their mission in Baghdad Tuesday to help the Iraqi army, but the Pentagon said the American troops were not taking on a combat role.

The primary task of the advisers was to evaluate the state of the Iraqi forces and not to turn the tide against militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which have swept across western and northern Iraq, the Pentagon's press secretary said.

More than 400 Turks were evacuated from Libya on Tuesday following threats by a rogue former rebel commander who accuses Ankara of backing his Islamist opponents, an airport official said.

The Turkish embassy chartered two aircraft to fly the 420 Turks home from Libya's third city Misrata, airport spokesman Mohamed Ismail told state news agency LANA.

Some 120 refugees from war-torn Syria are due to begin arriving in Uruguay in the coming weeks, officials here said on Tuesday.

The director of the country's office for human rights, Javier Miranda, is in Geneva finalizing with U.N. officials the details of an arrangement that will see the first 40 Syrians arrive "in September or October," a governmental spokesman said.

Iraq has not asked Iran for help against Sunni militants, its ambassador to Tehran said Tuesday as Baghdad government forces held off assaults on a key town and oil refinery.

The remarks by Mohammed Majid al-Sheikh came after Iranian leaders repeatedly said they were ready to assist Baghdad against the insurgency that has swept up a swathe of northern and north-central Iraq.