Forces loyal to a rogue Libyan general attacked the country's parliament Sunday, expanding his eastern offensive against Islamists into the heart of the country's capital. Gunmen detained some 20 lawmakers and officials, authorities said, as black smoke rose over the parliament.

The violence, three years after the 2011 civil war that toppled strongman Moammar Gadhafi, threatens to further splinter a country dominated by militias.

Syrian authorities on Sunday urged a mass turnout in a June 3 presidential election branded a "farce" by the opposition.

"Whoever abstains from exercising his constitutional duty would be turning his back on his national obligation at a time when his nation is calling on him," parliament speaker Mohammed al-Lahham said.

More than 13,000 soldiers from 24 countries are to take part in the annual "Eager Lion" military exercise in Jordan, state news agency Petra said Sunday.

It said "ground, air and naval forces comprising a total of more than 13,000 soldiers" are to be deployed during the May 25-June 10 war games, with "around 24 countries" taking part.

The chief of Syria's air defense forces, General Hussein Isaac, has been killed in combat near Damascus, a security official told Agence France Presse on Sunday.

The general died of wounds suffered in fighting at Mleiha, a key battleground southeast of the capital, making him one of the few top-ranking officers whose deaths have been announced during Syria's three-year war.

An Egyptian court on Sunday sentenced 126 supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi to 10 years in prison each in a mass trial over protest violence, judicial sources said.

Another court, in Cairo, sentenced a further 37 alleged Morsi supporters to 15 years in prison for trying to set off bombs during a protest at a metro station last year.

Israel's top police officer on Sunday vowed that Jewish extremists would not be allowed to spoil the upcoming visit of Pope Francis by vandalizing Christian holy places. 

"You cannot exaggerate the importance of this visit on both a national and an international level," Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino told reporters in Jerusalem.

Iran's intelligence ministry has arrested three people suspected of being behind a bomb attack on a military parade in 2010, media reports said Sunday.

The explosion in the ethnically Kurdish northwestern town of Mahabad in West Azerbaijan province killed 12 spectators and wounded 81 others.

Two youths, one a Tunisian, were given six-month suspended sentences on Sunday for protesting against a fourth presidential mandate for Algeria's Abdelaziz Bouteflika, their lawyers said.

The Israeli army said on Sunday that troops had arrested 13 wanted Palestinians overnight as tension remained high in the occupied West Bank.

All were wanted for "illegal activities", a military spokeswoman said, indicating they were picked up in the southern cities of Hebron and Bethlehem, as well as in two villages north of Ramallah. 

A Syrian court has brought some 30,000 lawsuits over acts related to "terrorism" in the past two years, a pro-regime newspaper in the war-torn country said Sunday.

Among those accused were around 300 citizens of Arab countries other than Syria, said Al-Watan newspaper, which is close to the regime of President Bashar Assad.