Iran's President Hassan Rouhani says that Washington's call for new nuclear negotiations at the same time as it reimposes crippling sanctions "doesn't make sense" and is an attempt at "psychological warfare".

An Iraqi court yesterday sentenced a French man and a German woman to life in prison in the latest punishments handed down for

Iran said yesterday the United States was "isolated" in its hostility to the Islamic republic, as it braced for the return of sanctions against a backdrop of political turmoil inside the country.

A member of the political wing of Yemen's Huthi rebels yesterday said the insurgents were willing to attend UN-brokered talks, although

Hundreds of mourners yesterday buried the victims of a twin suicide attack on a Shia mosque in eastern Afghanistan, as the death toll rose to 35, officials said.

At least 55 people, including women and children, have been killed in Yemen's Red Sea port city of Hodeidah in air raids carried out by a Saudi and UAE alliance battling Houthi rebels, the rebel-run health ministry said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu yesterday said he told US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that threats and sanctions will not work, after Washington targeted Turkish ministers over the detention of an American pastor.

Thirty-nine people are killed in a suicide bombing of a Shi'ite mosque in eastern Afghanistan, and the death toll may climb further, police and government officials say.

Afghan police in Kabul yesterday recovered the bodies of three foreign nationals who they said had been abducted and killed, in the latest incident targeting foreigners in the war-torn capital.

Gains by President Bashar al-Assad's forces in the Syrian civil war present advantages for Israel even though the two countries remain technically at war, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said yesterday.

Israel reimposed a blockade on fuel deliveries to Gaza yesterday citing a resurgence in kites carrying firebombs over the border and signalling a brief pause in tensions may be ending.

Iranian lawmakers have given President Hassan Rouhani one month to appear before parliament to answer questions on his government's handling of Iran's economic struggles, state media reported yesterday.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad yesterday told his troops they were close to winning the country's seven-year civil war after inflicting a succession of defeats on rebels.

Dozens of Islamic State group fighters were cornered in a pocket of Syria's Daraa yesterday after losing all other territory there to a Russian-backed regime assault, a monitor said.

Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi said Monday she was deeply changed by her eight-month sentence in an Israeli jail for slapping two soldiers, but does not regret any of her actions.

The Islamic State group kidnapped dozens of Druze women and children when it attacked their villages last week in Syria's southern

Israel's military has arrested four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank from a television station close to Hamas, officials said yesterday,

Saudi Arabia has reassured Arab allies it will not endorse any Middle East peace plan that fails to address Jerusalem's status or refugees' right of return, easing their concerns that the kingdom might back a nascent US deal which aligns with Israel on key issues.

Iran's top security body has approved the release of opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, under house arrest for seven years for leading mass protests in 2009, a family member told local media. Mousavi, 76, and Karroubi, 80, who were candidates of the 2013 polls, lead a mass protest claiming the vote was rigged.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi yesterday sacked his minister of electricity after three weeks of protests against corruption and chronic power cuts in the energy-rich country. Iraq has been gripped by three weeks of protests over power outages, unemployment, state mismanagement and a lack of clean water.