Egyptian security forces have killed 14 suspected militants during a raid carried out in the restive Sinai Peninsula in response to a deadly checkpoint attack, the authorities said.

The United Arab Emirates, along with Saudi Arabia and Norway, will on Thursday present to the U.N. Security Council the findings of their probe of the May 12 attacks on oil tankers off the Emirati coast, diplomats said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attended a mosque in the capital Damascus on Wednesday for prayers marking the end of Ramadan, pictures posted by state media showed.

Militants killed eight Egyptian policemen on Wednesday at a checkpoint in the Sinai Peninsula, center of a long-running jihadist insurgency, the interior ministry said.

Syria's Kurds said Wednesday two American women and six children had been repatriated to the United States from a camp housing thousands who fled the Islamic State group "caliphate".

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday slammed a U.S. Middle East peace plan as a "great betrayal of the Islamic world", and warned Gulf rivals not to back it. 

Washington is gearing up to roll out economic aspects of its long-awaited plan for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians -- dubbed the "deal of the century" -- at a conference in Bahrain later this month.

President Donald Trump's administration approved the transfer of nuclear technical expertise to Saudi Arabia twice after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Democratic senator said.

Saudi Arabia said it evacuated an Iranian crew member from a "hostile" ship off the coast of Yemen amid its war against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, the second-such aid it has offered in recent weeks amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

An Algerian prosecutor has requested that a business tycoon linked to ousted leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika be sentenced to 18 months in prison for "forgery", according to an AFP correspondent. 

The head of Libya's National Oil Company warned Monday against a "collapse in production" stemming from conflict in the North African country.