The oil-rich United Arab Emirates on Saturday announced the startup of its Barakah nuclear power plant, scoring another first for the Arab world.

Iraq's government said Thursday that since last October when anti-government protests erupted in the country, a total of 560 protesters and members of the security forces have been killed in the violence.

The figure was reported by Hisham Daoud, an advisor to Iraq's prime minister, at a press conference in Baghdad. He said a fact-finding committee would investigate the killings further.

Small groups of pilgrims performed one of the final rites of the Islamic hajj on Friday as Muslims worldwide marked the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday amid a global pandemic that has impacted nearly every aspect of this year's pilgrimage and celebrations.

The last days of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia coincide with the four-day Eid al-Adha, or "Feast of Sacrifice," in which Muslims slaughter livestock and distribute the meat to the poor.

Saudi Arabia's King Salman was discharged from a hospital in the capital Riyadh after more than a week following surgery to remove his gall bladder, the Royal Court said.

The court said in a statement late Thursday the monarch, 84, left the King Faisal Specialist Hospital after a recovery.

Yemen's Huthi rebels on Thursday freed six members of the Baha'i faith whose years of imprisonment had raised international concern, the community said.

A car bomb in northeast Syria targeting a checkpoint manned by Turkish-backed forces killed nine people, mostly fighters, near the border town of Ras al-Ain on Thursday, a war monitor said.

A gang rape allegation at a luxury hotel in Egypt stemming from a prominent social media account has triggered a new #MeToo wave in the deeply conservative country.

Masked pilgrims arrived Thursday at Mount Arafat, a desert hill near Islam's holiest site, to pray and repent on the most important day of the hajj, the annual pilgrimage in Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

The global coronavirus pandemic has cast a shadow over every aspect of this year's pilgrimage, which last year drew 2.5 million Muslims from across the world to Mount Arafat, where the Prophet Muhammad delivered his final sermon nearly 1,400 years ago.

A prominent Moroccan journalist and activist was Wednesday placed in pre-trial detention on charges of rape and receiving foreign funds for the purpose of harming "state security", the justice ministry said. 

The United States on Wednesday slapped sanctions on the son of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, extending efforts to block funds for the war-torn country's regime.

Hafez al-Assad, 18, named after his grandfather, will not be allowed to travel or maintain assets in the United States, the State Department said.