The British government on Monday rebuffed U.S. President Donald Trump's call to take back alleged UK jihadists captured in Syria and try them at home.

A Jerusalem court refused Monday to release to house arrest an ultra-Orthodox Israeli woman sought by Australia over accusations of sexually abusing girls under her care there.

As soon as they spotted a truck distributing gas canisters, residents in the Syrian city of Aleppo formed a long queue stretching down the street -- a now-familiar sight due to crippling shortages. 

Former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, whose party has trailed far behind in polls ahead of April 9 elections, announced Monday she was retiring from politics.

A double bomb attack in Syria's jihadist-held city of Idlib on Monday killed 24 people, including four children, a war monitor said.

The first blast was caused by a bomb planted under a car in the main city of the Idlib region, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

A top Kurdish official has called on Europe not to abandon Syrian Kurds once the battle against the Islamic State group is over and to help set up an international force to protect them from Turkey.

Saudi Arabia vowed to "de-escalate" rising tensions between Pakistan and India during a high-profile summit in Islamabad Monday as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman prepares to travel from Islamabad to New Delhi.

Pakistan will confer its highest civilian honour on the Saudi crown prince on Monday, a day after he signed investment deals worth $20 billion on the first stop of an Asian tour clouded by his alleged role in the grisly murder of a dissident journalist.

President Arif Alvi will award Mohammad bin Salman the Nishan-e-Pakistan (Order of Pakistan), the foreign office said in a statement, before the crown prince leaves the country for his next stop, Islamabad's arch-rival India. 

Yemen's government and Huthi rebels have agreed on the first phase of a pullback of forces from the key city of Hodeida, in a deal the United Nations described Sunday as important progress.

Islamic State group jihadists were defending the last pocket of their "caliphate" in Syria on Monday, as EU foreign ministers meet to discuss the crisis after US President Donald Trump called on European nations to take back their foreign fighters.

Diehard IS jihadists are trapped in their last patch of territory of less than half a square kilometre in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border.