A wave of Russian air strikes killed at least 21 Islamic State group jihadists in the Syrian desert over the past 24 hours, a war monitor said on Saturday.

Private security contractor and ally of former US President Trump Erik Prince violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya, UN investigators have found in a report detailed by US media on Friday.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the February 3 killing of four soldiers in a rugged region of central Tunisia, SITE Intelligence Group reported.

The US military is looking for fallback bases in Saudi Arabia to prevent its troops deployed there from becoming obvious targets in the event of tensions with Iran, a senior US military official said Thursday. 

Two Syrian shepherds were exchanged for an Israeli woman under a prisoner exchange deal on Thursday between the Jewish state and Syria mediated by Russia.

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Thursday called for the dissolution of parliament and early legislative elections after expressing dissatisfaction with the government.

An Algerian court on Thursday sentenced to death the main defendant in the 2014 kidnapping and beheading of French mountaineer Herve Gourdel.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday pledged support for neighboring Libya in talks with the country's newly appointed interim prime minister.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone Wednesday after a month of silence that raised concerns in Israel about a frostier relationship between the two allies.

Netanyahu's office was first to announce the conversation, releasing a photo of a smiling prime minister holding a phone to his ear. The statement said the conversation was "warm and friendly" and lasted about an hour.

The United Arab Emirates is dismantling parts of a military base it runs in the East African nation of Eritrea after it pulled back from the grinding war in nearby Yemen, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show.

The UAE built a port and expanded an airstrip in Assab beginning in September 2015, using the facility as a base to ferry heavy weaponry and Sudanese troops into Yemen as it fought alongside a Saudi-led coalition against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels there.