An Egyptian disciplinary court forcibly retired 41 judges Saturday for supporting ousted president Mohamed Morsi, a judicial source said, amid a crackdown against both Islamist and secular opposition.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former army chief who overthrew Morsi in 2013, has pledged to eradicate the Islamist's once popular Muslim Brotherhood movement. 

Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan government has obtained evidence that the Islamic State group used chlorine in a car bomb attack against its peshmerga forces in January, a statement said Saturday.

"Peshmerga forces collected soil and clothing samples after a vehicle-borne suicide attack (VBIED) on 23 January 2015," the Kurdistan Region Security Council said.

Rare clashes between fighters from the Islamic State group and the Fajr Libya militia coalition erupted Saturday in the central city of Sirte, security and militia officials said.

It was the first report of fighting between the two groups since February, when Fajr Libya said it had sent reinforcements to Sirte to restore security there.

Yemeni political forces who oppose the Shiite militia that has seized control of Sanaa formed an alliance against it Saturday, saying they want to restore state authority and rebuild weakened security forces.

Yemen descended into chaos after the militia, known as Huthis, seized Sanaa in September and then began a push to spread their influence further afield.

An influential relative of Syrian President Bashar Assad, once infamous for smuggling, has been assassinated in a dispute over control of a key government stronghold, a monitor said Saturday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said Mohamed Assad was shot dead on Friday in Latakia province, the heartland of the president's Alawite community.

Western oil workers in Saudi Arabia risk being attacked or kidnapped by "terrorist" groups in the OPEC kingpin, the U.S. embassy in Riyadh said in a warning posted online.

The U.S. mission said it "has information stating that, as of early March, individuals associated with a terrorist organisation could be targeting Western oil workers, possibly to include those U.S. citizens working for oil companies in the Eastern Province, for an attack(s) and/or kidnapping(s)".

The Hamas-held interior ministry in the Gaza Strip on Saturday accused security forces reporting to the rival Palestinian Authority of being behind a wave of violence in the coastal enclave.

Spokesman Iyad al-Bozum accused "members of the former security establishment in Gaza" of "exploiting the difficult conditions, especially since the last war, to spread chaos and confusion with explosions, car burnings and shootings."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday that Washington will decide "very soon" on freeing military aid to Egypt frozen since the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Kerry made the announcement on the sidelines of an international investment conference in Egypt, after four Arab states pledged to offer $12 billion (11.4 billion) in investment aid to help revive its economy.

The $12 billion pledged by three Arab states to Egypt at an international conference this weekend is a message of "clear political support" to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a minister said Saturday.

Sisi, who ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and brutally crushed his supporters, has sought to persuade allies that his country is on the front lines of a war against regional militants. 

Three days ahead of Israel's general election, there was growing uncertainty Saturday over who will win the premiership even as polls showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trailing his center-left rivals.

The final two voting surveys released Friday night by private television channels gave the Zionist Union, headed by Labor leader Isaac Herzog, a four-seat lead over Netanyahu's Likud.