Kuwait will buy 28 Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets to replace a fleet of earlier versions of the U.S. fighter jets, a top official said Monday. 

Islamist-dominated opposition groups and their allies secured nearly half of the Kuwaiti parliament's seats, official results showed Sunday, raising fears of fresh political wrangling in the oil-rich Gulf state.

Kuwait's emir dissolved parliament Sunday following tensions between lawmakers and the government over a petrol price hike, setting the stage for early elections within two months.

The surprise move came after lawmakers in the oil-rich emirate strongly opposed the government's unilateral hike of petrol prices -- one of a host of austerity measures following a sharp drop in crude revenues.

Yemen's government delegation to peace talks left Kuwait on Monday after the rebel side rejected a draft peace plan proposed by the United Nations, its representatives said.

Kuwaiti security authorities have broken up three Islamic State cells plotting "terror" attacks in the oil-rich Gulf state, the interior ministry said Monday.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was to meet Sunday with Yemen's warring sides in a bid to push forward peace talks that have made no headway after two months.

Yemen's warring parties are struggling to seal a peace deal as mutual mistrust has overshadowed eight weeks of U.N.-brokered talks in Kuwait that have failed to achieve any major breakthrough.

A Kuwait court on Monday sentenced three members of the Al-Sabah ruling family and four others to jail terms for insulting the emir and the judiciary on the Internet.

The court sentenced the three royals and two others to five years each, a sixth man for one year and handed down a 10-year term to a seventh man in absentia.

Kuwait's emir on Wednesday urged Yemen's warring parties to press ahead with peace talks, a day after the government delegation threatened to pull out of the U.N.-brokered negotiations.

Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, whose country is hosting the talks, called on the two sides to continue negotiating to "reach positive results", the official KUNA news agency reported.

Kuwait's supreme court on Monday upheld a one-year jail sentence against leading stateless rights activist Abdulhakeem al-Fadhli and five others for demonstrating.

The six men were convicted of illegal assembly, defying orders and assaulting police, according to the court ruling which also states they will be deported from the oil-rich Gulf state after serving the jail term.