Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awadh Asiri has said he informed Prime Minister Tammam Salam that Riyadh is keen on Lebanon's constitutional institutions after reports that the PM was mulling to resign.

In remarks to al-Joumhouria daily published Wednesday, Asiri said: “I stressed to him (Salam) that the Kingdom is keen on the continued functioning of state institutions, chiefly the premiership.”

Saudi King Salman has expressed support for Turkey after it launched air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria and Kurdish militants in Iraq, state media reported on Tuesday.

The king told President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday that he backed Turkey's right to self-defense, the official Saudi Press Agency said.

The Saudi-led coalition bombing Yemeni rebels since March declared a five-day truce Saturday so aid can reach a country the U.N. says is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.

Announcing the unilateral truce to begin from midnight Sunday, a statement on the official Saudi Press Agency said the coalition also reserved the right to respond to "military activity or movement" by the Shiite Huthi rebels during the ceasefire.

Lebanese Forces official Melhem Riachi informed Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Thursday that Saudi Arabia encourages the rapprochement between the two parties.

Riachi, who is LF chief Samir Geagea's envoy, delivered a message to Aoun during a visit he made to Rabieh that Riyadh “backs and encourages Christian rapprochement,” local media reported.

Yemeni ministers have arrived back in Aden from Saudi exile after the government announced the "liberation" of the country's second city from Iran-backed rebels, the interior minister said on Saturday. 

"We arrived last night," Abdo al-Huzeifi told AFP, adding that he was accompanied by Transport Minister Badr Basalma and several security officials.

A suicide bomber wounded two policemen at a checkpoint near a high-security prison in the Saudi capital Riyadh in an attack claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

The group said that the bomber, identified by Saudi authorities as Abdullah al-Rashid, 19, had also killed his uncle, a colonel in the interior ministry, before blowing himself up, the SITE Intelligence monitoring group said.

A car bomb exploded Thursday night at a security checkpoint in the Saudi capital Riyadh, killing the driver and wounding two policemen, the interior ministry said.

The blast came with the kingdom on alert for attacks by the Islamic State group of jihadists, who have been blamed for killing policemen and for slaughtering members of the minority Shiite community.

A Saudi soldier was killed in a rocket attack on the kingdom's border with Yemen, where Riyadh is leading an air war against Iran-backed rebels, the interior ministry said.

The rocket fire in the southern city of Jazan killed Faisal Mohammed Belqasem Maqaadi and wounded another soldier, an interior ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency late Saturday.

Three Saudi soldiers and an Emirati have been killed on Saudi Arabia's border with Yemen, where Riyadh is a leading a bombing campaign against Iran-backed rebels, state media said Thursday.

Two Saudi troops were killed at sunset Wednesday when a rocket landed in the Jizan region, the Saudi-led coalition said in a statement carried by the SPA state news agency.

French President Francois Hollande's envoy is expected to visit Beirut in the coming weeks in an effort to revive France's efforts to resolve the Lebanese presidential deadlock.

An Nahar daily on Thursday quoted ministerial sources as saying that the Director of the Department of the Middle East and North Africa at the French Foreign Ministry, Jean-François Girault, will visit Beirut at the end of the month or in early July.