The Iraqi foreign ministry on Thursday sharply criticized a visit by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to the disputed city of Kirkuk, saying it had not been informed of or approved the trip.

It is a new low for already-chilly relations between Iraq and its neighbor to the north, which have been marred by disputes, including oil exports by the autonomous Kurdish region to Turkey without Baghdad's approval.

A judge in Egypt investigating corruption charges against former Premier Ahmed Shafiq on Thursday ordered Hosni Mubarak's two sons detained for allegedly buying land from Shafiq at below market price, state media reported.

Alaa and Gamal Mubarak are already in detention on other corruption-related charges.

Egypt's military chief, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, will remain as defense minister, a post he held under ex-president Hosni Mubarak, in the new cabinet announced on Thursday, said Prime Minister Hisham Qandil.

Tantawi ruled the country after Mubarak's ouster early last year, before handing power to Islamist President Mohammed Morsi following his election in June.

Three million Syrians need food, crops and livestock assistance, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization said Thursday, citing a survey by the United Nations and the Syrian government.

The FAO said that figure included 1.5 million Syrians who "need urgent and immediate food assistance over the next three to six months, especially in areas that have seen the greatest conflict and population displacement."

Three attacks on separate checkpoints north of Baghdad on Thursday killed eight people, including four policemen and three anti-Qaida militiamen, Iraqi officials said.

Unknown gunmen killed four policemen in an attack on a checkpoint on a road near Tikrit, 160 kilometers north of Baghdad, a Tikrit police officer and a medic from the town's hospital said.

Rebels in Syria on Thursday bombarded the Menagh air base that was being used by helicopter gunships and other warplanes to attack the northern city of Aleppo, sources said.

Syrian rebels used tanks to attack a military airport northwest of Aleppo on Thursday, a rebel commander said, as a human rights group reported 67 people killed in violence nationwide.

"We had already attacked the airport several times, but this was the first time we used heavy weapons," which were "four tanks taken from Anadan," rebel commander Abdel Aziz Salameh told Agence France Presse, referring to a strategic military checkpoint outside Aleppo that the rebels captured on Monday.

Tehran is demanding the immediate release of a group of Iranian Red Crescent workers kidnapped in Libya, and says the Libyan government is responsible for their lives, the ISNA news agency reported on Thursday.

"Iran demands immediate action to free the seven members of the Iranian Red Crescent," deputy foreign affairs minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian was quoted as saying.

The U.S. Congress Wednesday approved punishing new sanctions targeting Iran's energy and shipbuilding sectors, a day after President Barack Obama unveiled measures to cripple Tehran's nuclear drive.

The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly 421-6 for the measure, which Foreign Affairs Committee chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen described as the toughest sanctions yet imposed on the Islamic republic over its refusal to rein in its nuclear program.

President Barack Obama has signed a covert document authorizing U.S. support for Syrian rebels locked in a battle to overthrow beleaguered President Bashar Assad, reports said Wednesday.

The directive was contained in a "finding" -- a device authorizing clandestine action by the Central Intelligence Agency, NBC and CNN said, citing unidentified sources.