Qatar has agreed to keep up a travel ban imposed on five Taliban leaders swapped for a U.S. soldier a year ago while talks continue to hammer out their new status, a U.S. official said Monday.

"All five remain in Qatar, where they remain subject to extensive monitoring, as well as travel restrictions. We are in close contact with our Qatari counterparts on this issue," State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter discussed halting land reclamation in the South China Sea with his Vietnamese counterpart in Hanoi on Monday in talks focused on maritime security.

The meeting came after the United States on Saturday called for an immediate end to all such work in the disputed waters where both Vietnam and Beijing have reclaimed land.

The Chinese military will hold a live-fire exercise near its border with Myanmar, state media reported Monday, as effects from an ethnic insurgency raging in the southeast Asian country spill over into China.

The official Xinhua news agency, citing unidentified military sources, said the drill would begin on Tuesday in Yunnan province, but provided no other details, such as what kind of weapons would be used.

Every time he looks in a mirror, Laith Ahmed is worried. As of Monday, the young Iraqi's hopelessly hairless chin could land him in an Islamic State group jail.

The jihadist group has handed out leaflets in their stronghold of Mosul in recent weeks announcing that full beards become compulsory on June 1 and explaining why shaving is punishable.

Several Americans have been detained in Yemen, a State Department official said Sunday, amid reports that at least four U.S. citizens are being held by Shiite rebels.

The Washington Post reported that the Americans were believed to be held by the Huthi militia in a prison near the capital Sanaa, and that U.S. efforts to secure their release had faltered, hampered by the fact that Washington has no direct links to the rebels.

Tehran rejected a key Western demand for site inspections Saturday and differences remained after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart held talks to secure a nuclear deal.

With a deadline a month away, a senior Iranian negotiator said the Geneva talks between Kerry and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif failed to bridge the differences between Tehran and world powers.

The U.S. Department of State renewed its travel warning advisory to Lebanon over safety and security concerns, citing fears over the increasing tension along Lebanon's northeastern border town of Arsal and the rise of terror groups in the country.

U.S. Embassy sources informed Naharnet on Saturday that “the travel warning, which is renewed every six months, is issued to provide U.S. citizens in Lebanon with more concrete context on the risks” of traveling or residing in Beirut.

Police stepped in Friday to separate anti-Islam protesters outside a U.S. mosque from demonstrators defending religious rights, in a tense but peaceful standoff.

About 200 demonstrators faced off outside the mosque in Phoenix, Arizona, where a biker group had said they would hold a Mohammed cartoon contest.

Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial bid to stand for a third term in office suffered a new blow on Saturday after it emerged that a top election official had fled the country.

Sources said the election commission's vice president, Spes Caritas Ndironkeye, jetted out of the crisis-hit central African nation late Friday, leaving behind a resignation letter and preparations for next week's parliamentary elections in disarray.

The United States on Saturday vowed to keep sending military aircraft and ships to disputed parts of the South China Sea and called for an immediate halt to reclamation works by Beijing in the tense region.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a high-level security conference in Singapore that Beijing's intensifying reclamation activity was "out of step" with international norms.