The leaders of Russia and Turkey held crisis talks on Friday to try to scale down tensions after 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in a regime air strike in Syria.

At least three Syrian soldiers were wounded by Israeli helicopter fire near the annexed Golan Heights late Thursday, the official SANA agency reported.

The U.N. Security Council's western members called Thursday for a "humanitarian ceasefire" in Syria's war-battered Idlib region, but Russia was unmoved, saying the only solution was "to chase the terrorists from the country."

Syrian rebels on Thursday re-entered a key northwestern town they lost earlier this month, reversing one of the main gains of the government's devastating offensive in Idlib province.

The Russian defense ministry on Thursday accused Turkey of violating a peace deal for Syria's Idlib by supporting rebels with artillery fire and drones.

Iraq's divided parliament Thursday postponed a confidence vote for the government of prime minister-designate Mohammad Allawi over lack of quorum, plunging the country deeper into political uncertainty.

The son of Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has been acquitted in a high-profile corruption case in which a prominent businessman was sentenced to prison, the national radio reported Thursday.

The Libyan capital's only working airport was hit by rocket fire Thursday, aviation officials said, in the latest violation of a ceasefire between warring sides vying for control of Tripoli.

Israel approved nearly 1,800 new homes in settlements in the occupied West Bank Thursday, the country’s right-wing Defense Minister announced, four days ahead of a general election.

Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters on Thursday retook a strategic northwestern town in Syria that was recently captured by government forces, and cut the highway linking the capital, Damascus, with the northern city of Aleppo days after the government reopened it for the first time since 2012.

The retaking of Saraqeb which sits on the highway is a setback for Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces who have scored major gains in a weeks long Russian-backed campaign in the last rebel stronghold in Idlib province. Officials had hailed the reopening of the motorway, known as the M5, as a major victory in the nine-year conflict.