A Saudi was beheaded by the sword on Monday after being convicted of murdering a fellow citizen in the kingdom's oil-rich Eastern Province, the interior ministry said.

Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Shamri was found guilty of shooting dead Mohammed bin Jaloud al-Anzi, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

Israeli troops fired tank shells into Syria on Monday in retaliation for a mortar round that struck near an army post in the Golan Heights, scoring "direct hits" on the source of the fire, the army said.

"A short while ago, a mortar shell hit an open area in the vicinity of an IDF (army) post in the central Golan Heights, as part of the internal conflict inside Syria, causing no damage or injuries," it said.

Iraq will renegotiate a massive weapons deal with Russia, a spokesman said on Monday, after Baghdad cancelled a $4.2 billion agreement that would have made Moscow Iraq's biggest supplier after the U.S.

The cancellation on account of graft concerns of the initial deal, announced last month while Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was visiting Moscow, was a setback for Russia's attempts to firm up its slipping foothold in the Middle East and also threw into doubt efforts by Iraq to equip its armed forces.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies launched an emergency appeal Monday for 32.3 million Swiss francs ($34.1 million, 26.8 million euros) to help up to 170,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey.

"The Turkish Red Crescent Society is extending its existing response to prepare for the onset of winter and to increase its assistance to up to 170,000 displaced people over the coming months," the IFRC said in a statement.

Russia on Monday called on Syria's newly-united opposition to seek a negotiated solution to the conflict with the regime of President Bashar Assad without interference from abroad.

Syria's opposition factions agreed at a conference in Qatar at the weekend to create a new National Coalition led by moderate Muslim cleric Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib that aims to win broad international recognition.

Two bomb blasts have struck a pipeline that links Yemen's eastern oil fields with terminals on the Red Sea, officials said on Monday.

Both explosions hit the pipeline in the eastern province of Marib late Sunday, causing partial damage and disrupting the flow of oil, a security official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Iran on Monday denied it is sanitizing a suspect military base where the U.N. atomic watchdog wants to probe evidence of possible weapons research.

"Clean-up of such places is not possible," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told Agence France Presse.

Iran on Monday launched an air defense exercise a general said was aimed at optimizing its deterrent capabilities as well as sending a "strong warning" to those threatening it with military strikes.

The start of the maneuvers, originally scheduled for early October but postponed without an official explanation, was announced on the website of the Revolutionary Guards, sepahnews.com.

Arab foreign ministers are to gather on Monday in Cairo for talks focused mainly on Syria, a day after its fractured opposition agreed a breakthrough deal to close ranks.

Foreign ministers and senior diplomats of the 22-member body will be joined by Lakhdar Brahimi, the international envoy for Syria, for talks at 1500 GMT, a day after Syria's deeply divided opposition agreed to unite against President Bashar Assad, electing a moderate Muslim cleric as leader.

Syrian aircraft bombed the strategic border town of Ras al-Ain on Monday, killing at least four people and sending panicked residents fleeing into Turkey, an AFP photographer reported.

Fighting also raged close to the armistice line on the Golan Heights where a stray mortar round on Sunday prompted the first retaliatory fire by Israel since the 1973 Middle East war, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.