International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde met Saudi Finance Minister Ibrahim al-Assaf on Saturday to discuss efforts to resolve Europe's debt crisis, the state news agency SPA reported.

The talks in Riyadh also covered regional and global economic conditions, it said on its website.

Iranian naval ships docked on Saturday in the Saudi port city of Jeddah on a mission to project the Islamic republic's "power on the open seas," the Fars news agency reported.

The supply ship Kharg and Shaid Qandi, a destroyer, docked in the Red Sea port in line with orders from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, it quoted navy commander Admiral Habibollah Sayari as saying.

Iran has asked OPEC members not to raise oil production to compensate for a European Union embargo against the Islamic republic, Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said on Saturday.

Qasemi said the request was forwarded in a letter to Iraq, the current head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday beheaded a man convicted of murder in the kingdom's southwest, the interior ministry said.

Abulrahman al-Qarni shot dead fellow Saudi Mushabab al-Khathami during a dispute, said the ministry statement carried by state news agency SPA.

The Taliban militia leading a 10-year insurgency in Afghanistan on Wednesday denied that they would soon hold talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government in Saudi Arabia.

"There is no truth in these published reports saying that the delegation of the Islamic Emirate would meet with representatives of the Karzai government in Saudi Arabia in the near future," the Taliban said on their website.

Thirty-five Ethiopian Christians, 29 of them women, face deportation from Saudi Arabia for "illicit mingling" after police raided a private prayer gathering, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

The New York-based watchdog said the women were subjected to "unwarranted strip search," while the men were beaten and insulted as "unbelievers".

Afghan officials and representatives of the Taliban insurgents fighting the Western-backed government are to hold peace talks in Saudi Arabia, a Riyadh-based Afghan diplomat said on Monday.

"An Afghan government delegation and a Taliban delegation will hold talks in Saudi Arabia," the diplomat told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity, but he could not give a timeframe.

Saudi Arabia beheaded a Pakistani man who was arrested as he tried to smuggle drugs into the ultra-conservative kingdom, the interior ministry said on Monday.

"Salman Khan Taj Mohammed, a Pakistani... was arrested as he was caught smuggling a large amount of heroin" into the country, the ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA.

A government-run Saudi Arabian newspaper reports that for the first time in the conservative Muslim country, women will be allowed to attend football matches in one of the country's stadiums.

Al-Sharq newspaper on Saturday quoted unnamed officials as saying that women will be able to watch the matches in a new facility that will be completed in 2014 in the western port city of Jeddah.

Saudi Arabia will recognize the Syrian National Council as the "official representative" of the Syrian people, a senior member of the opposition group said in remarks published on Friday.

"Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told an SNC delegation he met in Cairo last week the kingdom will recognize the Council as the official representative of the Syrian people," SNC executive council member Ahmad Ramadan told Kuwait's al-Rai newspaper.