Two Egyptian policemen were killed in a roadside bombing in the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, the interior ministry said, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

The ministry said 16 policemen were also wounded when the bomb hit their convoy in the north of the peninsula, where security forces are struggling to quell an Islamist insurgency.

Iran urged Saudi Arabia on Saturday to locate more than 340 of its nationals still missing in the aftermath of the deadly stampede at the annual hajj pilgrimage.

So far, 136 Iranians are known to have been killed and 102 injured, said the head of Iran's hajj organisation, Said Ohadi, in the worst tragedy in a quarter-century at the pilgrimage to Islam's holiest sites in western Saudi Arabia.

A senior Saudi officer and another border guard were killed in a gunbattle after a landmine blast along the frontier with Yemen, the interior ministry said on Saturday.

Colonel Hassan Ghasoum Ageeli and a deputy sergeant died late Friday in the Jazan district, and four other guards were lightly wounded, the ministry said in a statement.

Russia kept up its military buildup in Syria on Saturday with a fresh transport flight into a new airbase in the heartland of its regime ally, a Syrian military source told Agence France Presse.

It was the 15th straight day that a Russian transport aircraft had flown in troops and equipment to the Hmeimim base in Latakia province on the Mediterranean coast, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Saudi Arabia's top religious leader says a stampede which killed 717 pilgrims was beyond human control, official media reported on Saturday, the final day of this year's hajj.

The stampede was the worst disaster in a quarter-century to strike the annual event and drew fierce criticism of the Saudi authorities' handling of safety, particularly from regional rival Iran.

The Pentagon on Friday said a group of U.S.-trained Syrian rebels had handed over ammunition and equipment to al-Qaida's affiliate in the country, the Al-Nusra Front, purportedly in exchange for safe passage.

The startling acknowledgement contrasted with earlier Pentagon denials of reports that some fighters had either defected or handed over gear.

Hanna Yussef dreams of following thousands of fellow Iraqi Christians to refuge in Europe, abandoning a precarious existence in Jordan, where he has lived since fleeing Islamist violence at home.

But he's staying put for now because he can't afford the money needed for the perilous crossing by sea and, equally as important, because he can't swim.

Amnesty International on Friday urged the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate abuses by all sides during the Yemen conflict that has killed 4,900 people in six months. 

The rights group in a statement called on the council to "establish an investigation into violations of international humanitarian law and gross human rights abuses committed by all sides in Yemen."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to Saudi Arabia's defense on Friday as blame shifted towards the Saudi authorities after a stampede at the hajj pilgrimage killed at least 717 people. 

"I do not sympathize with the hostile statements against Saudi Arabia," Erdogan told journalists.

A second French jihadist, Salim Benghalem, has been named as a possible jailer of Western hostages in Syria, a source close to the case told AFP on Friday. 

Benghalem was named along with Mehdi Nemmouche, who carried out a fatal attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels last year, as suspected jailers for the Islamic State group (IS).