Israel struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday, including a power station and coastal ports, in response to missile and drone launches, and warned it would hunt down the group's leaders.

A Syria monitor said fighters linked to the Islamist-led transitional administration publicly executed a local official on Friday, accusing him of having been an informant under ousted strongman Bashar al-Assad.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighters affiliated with the new authorities executed Mazen Kneneh with a shot to the head in the street in the Damascus suburb of Dummar, describing him as "one of the best-known loyalists of the former regime".

Turkey “does not have any secret agenda” in Syria and wants to construct a “new culture of cooperation,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Friday.

One of Turkey’s priorities in the upcoming year is to clear the region of terrorism, Fidan said, referring to Kurdish militants based in northeast Syria. “The extensions of the separatist group in Syria are now facing destruction and the old order is no longer going to continue,” he told a news conference in Istanbul.

An oil tanker that burned for weeks in the Red Sea after being attacked by Yemen's Houthi rebels and threatening a massive oil spill has been salvaged, a security firm said Friday.

The Sounion had been a disaster-in-waiting in the waterway, with 1 million barrels of crude oil aboard that had been struck and later sabotaged with explosives by the Iranian-backed Houthis as part of their campaign over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. It took months for salvagers to tow the vessel away, extinguish the fires and offload the remaining crude oil.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he will travel to Syria on Friday to encourage the country's transition following the ouster of President Bashar Assad by Islamist insurgents, and said Europe should review its sanctions on Damascus now that the political situation has changed.

Tajani presided over a meeting in Rome on Thursday of foreign ministry officials from five countries — Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States — after speaking earlier by telephone with his counterparts from Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau on Friday accused Algeria of "trying to humiliate France" after the North African country refused to admit one of its nationals who was being deported.

The influencer was arrested in the city of Montpellier on Sunday on charges of inciting violence in videos he posted on social media. French immigration officials put him on a flight to Algiers Thursday, but Algeria refused to admit him, saying he was banned from entering its territory. He was finally sent back to France that evening, the French interior ministry said.

The U.S. needs to keep troops deployed in Syria to prevent the Islamic State group from reconstituting as a major threat following the ouster of Bashar Assad's government, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told The Associated Press.

American forces are still needed there, particularly to ensure the security of detention camps holding tens of thousands of former IS fighters and family members, Austin said Wednesday in one of his final interviews before he leaves office.

Israeli soldiers recovered the body of a 53-year-old hostage in an underground tunnel in southern Gaza, the military said Wednesday, and the army was determining if another set of remains belongs to the man's son.

The discovery of Youssef AlZayadni's body comes as Israel and Hamas are considering a ceasefire deal that would free the remaining hostages and halt the fighting in Gaza. Israel says about a third of the remaining 100 hostages have died, but believes as many as half could be dead.

The U.S. military says it carried out Wednesday a wave of strikes against underground arms facilities of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

U.S. Central Command said in a statement that strikes targeted weapons used by the rebels to attack ships in the Red Sea.

President-elect Donald Trump is dispatching his incoming special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, to Qatar this week for talks aimed at a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of some 100 Israeli hostages.

Trump speaking at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday reiterated his threat that there will be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if the hostages are not released prior to his Jan. 20 inauguration.