Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, on a tour of Gulf states, will visit the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, he wrote on his Facebook page.

"Following the visit last week of the UAE's foreign minister to Tehran, tomorrow I will go to the Emirates and will have meetings with the high-ranking officials ... in Dubai and Abu Dhabi," Zarif said in his Tuesday post.

Israel's foreign minister is to hold Washington talks with John Kerry later this week hot on the heels of a new visit to the region by the U.S. top diplomat, an Israeli official said Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman will also meet U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon and address the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, his deputy Zeev Elkin told public radio.

Muslim Brotherhood-linked theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi has resigned from the governing body of Cairo's Al-Azhar, accusing the top Sunni seat of learning of supporting Egypt's military-installed government.

"I submit my resignation," Qaradawi wrote on Twitter and his Facebook page on Monday, accusing the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb, of "abusing the authority of the office to support the military coup."

Globe-trotting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry left on a new trip Monday heading first for key NATO talks, before then traveling to Israel aiming to soothe concerns over a nuclear deal with Iran.

The top U.S. diplomat will also pay a landmark visit to the former Soviet satellite of Moldova, which has been off the beaten track for most American secretaries of state and high-level U.S. officials in recent years.

A Libyan security forces member was killed Monday in the eastern city of Benghazi and four people were wounded in nearby Derna when gunmen fired on a protest against insecurity, officials said.

Benghazi -- cradle of the 2011 uprising that toppled long-ruling autocrat Moammar Gadhafi -- has seen a string of attacks on security forces in recent days following deadly clashes between the army and a jihadist militia known as Ansar al-Sharia.

Syrian rebels, including jihadist groups, captured the historic Christian town of Maalula north of Damascus on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Rebels assaulted the town by rolling explosive-filled tires down the hills onto regime forces and were able to reach the city center after three days of intense fighting, with clashes still raging in the surrounding areas.

Security forces defused a bomb placed in a car and primed to explode on a roadside near the Egyptian capital on Monday, security officials said.

The interior ministry said the stolen car was detected near a petrol station on the road to the city of Suez.

An Egyptian prosecutor ordered Monday the detention of a prominent secular activist for taking part in an unauthorized protest, just a day after he was freed over a similar case, state media reported.

Ahmed Maher, founder of the April 6 movement which was one of the main groups that spearheaded the revolt against Hosni Mubarak in 2011, had turned himself in on Saturday after an order for his arrest.

A Bahraini court on Monday sentenced 16 Shiites convicted of attacking a police patrol with Molotov cocktails to seven years in prison each, a judicial source said.

They were also found guilty of blocking roads by setting tires on fire in May last year and for taking part in an unauthorized protest during which a police vehicle was attacked, although no one was hurt.

Western nations Monday formally invited Israel into their club within the U.N. Human Rights Council, a key step in renewing cooperation between the Jewish state and the global watchdog.

"Today a letter was sent to Israel, it's an invitation for them to join the Western European countries group," a diplomatic source told Agence France Presse.