A Saudi-led coalition trying to halt the advance of Shiite rebels in neighboring Yemen is in no rush, its spokesman said Friday, nine days into a campaign of air strikes.

"Nine days is not that much time," particularly because the coalition is confronting militiamen rather than an organised army, Brigadier General Ahmed Assiri told reporters.

Two Israeli men were remanded in custody Friday after allegedly raising a false alarm of a possible kidnapping by Palestinian militants in the West Bank to impress an ex-girlfriend.

The hoax report centred on the same area of the occupied West Bank where three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and murdered less than a year ago.

Turkey on Friday summoned Tunisia's ambassador to explain remarks made by the Tunisian foreign minister accusing Ankara of facilitating the transit of jihadist fighters bound for neighboring Syria and Iraq, a Turkish official said.

"The foreign ministry sought an explanation for the remarks made by the Tunisian foreign minister," the official told AFP.

Clashes between Libyan government forces and Islamist-backed militiamen on Friday killed four militants, a security source said, and one person died in a mortar attack on Tripoli's only functioning airport.

The fighting broke out when armed men launched an assault on the edges of Aziziya, a town just 35 kilometers (22 miles) south of Tripoli, the source said.

Fighters from Al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate and allied groups advanced Friday on a key government-held military base in northwestern Idlib province, a monitor said.

The advance follows the capture of provincial capital Idlib by Al-Nusra Front and its allies on Saturday.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered Iraqi forces to oppose vandalism in the city of Tikrit, retaken from the Islamic State group this week, and arrest those responsible, his office said Friday.

Security and military forces were ordered to "deal with cases of vandalism" carried out by "gangs" seeking to tarnish the achievements of government forces and allied paramilitaries, a statement said.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said late Sunday he believed a nuclear deal with Iran could be reached, but insisted it must put an atomic bomb "beyond reach."

"We are here because we believe a deal can be done," Hammond told reporters waiting in the rain outside a Lausanne hotel as he became the last of the foreign ministers to arrive for talks with world powers.

French voters looked to have given the ruling Socialists a drubbing in run-off local polls on Sunday, while boosting the prospects for former president Nicolas Sarkozy and the far-right ahead of 2017 presidential polls. 

Right-wing parties, spearheaded by Sarkozy's UMP, took between 64 and 70 councils out of a possible 98, according to projections, as voters punished the socialist government of President Francois Hollande for failing to revive the slumping economy. 

A Lebanese resident of the northern city of Tripoli has died fighting alongside jihadists in the northwestern city of Idlib, media reports said on Sunday.

“Lebanese national Mustafa Khodr was killed in a suicide operation during battles he fought alongside the militants in Idlib,” Lebanon's NBN television said.

A four-day march led by Arab Israeli MPs in solidarity with Israel's impoverished Bedouin community wound up on Sunday at the Jewish state's presidency.

President Reuven Rivlin's office said Arab representatives delivered a report on the hardships faced by Bedouin villages to his wife, Nechama, as the head of state was in Singapore for the funeral of its founding father Lee Kuan Yew.