Irked by Iraq's close ties to neighbouring Iran, Washington has begun following through on threats to squeeze Baghdad's fragile economy with delays to crucial cash deliveries and slashed sanctions waivers.

A Syrian military helicopter was shot down over the last major rebel bastion in northwest Syria on Friday, killing all crew on board, state media said, in the second such incident this week.

NATO will resume its training mission in Iraq in the coming days or weeks, the alliance's top military commander said Friday, after activities were suspended following a U.S. drone strike on Baghdad.

Yemen's Huthi rebels have dropped a threat to impose a tax on aid, a U.N. official told AFP Friday, in a significant step towards resolving a crisis that has jeopardized the world's biggest humanitarian operation.

As the bunch of brightly-colored balloons floated into Gaza's evening sky, there was a piercing crackle of gunfire. 

Israeli strikes on Damascus airport killed seven fighters, a war monitor said Friday, the latest in a string of attacks targeting Iran's military presence in Syria.

Syrian state media said only that its air defenses intercepted missiles over the capital overnight while Israel did not immediately comment on the strikes.

A rocket slammed into an Iraqi base where American troops are stationed in the remote province of Kirkuk, Iraqi and US security sources told AFP on Thursday night. 

Turkey on Thursday slammed the Syrian parliament's recognition of World War I killings of Armenians as genocide as a "hypocrisy", as tensions run high amid deadly clashes in northwest Syria.

Rival forces clashed in the Libyan capital Thursday, witnesses and pro-Government of National Accord (GNA) forces said, a day after a U.N. Security Council resolution called for a "lasting ceasefire."

A Saudi-led coalition fighting Huthi rebels has begun moves to put on trial those accused of being behind several deadly air strikes on civilians in Yemen, reports said Thursday.