Israel on Sunday denounced an Iranian announcement that it was sending naval ships towards the United States as further evidence that loosening sanctions on Tehran was counterproductive.

The move to send warships to the Atlantic was announced by the commander of Iran's northern naval fleet on Saturday, who described it as a "message."

A total of 420 people were evacuated Sunday from army-besieged districts of the Syrian city of Homs, the province's governor said, as television footage showed exhausted men, women and children.

"Four hundred and twenty besieged people came out today from the Old City districts of Homs, and the operation is still under way," Barazi said.

Shiite rebels and Yemeni tribesmen agreed a ceasefire on Sunday after deadly clashes between the two sides in the Arhab district near the capital Sanaa, state news agency Saba said.

Shiite rebels from the Ansarullah group, also known as Huthis, have been advancing from their mountain strongholds in the far north to other Zaidi Shiite-majority areas nearer Sanaa in a bid to expand their hoped-for autonomous zone in a future Yemen.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman rounded on right-wing coalition partners Sunday, saying that snipes at U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's peace efforts risked estranging "a true friend."

"The man has a record of 29 years in the Senate. You can see all of his votes, all of his speeches," Lieberman told Israeli army radio.

A bomb planted in the car of a Yemeni intelligence colonel exploded Sunday near the oil ministry, killing the officer and wounding three people, a security official said.

The blast is the latest in a series of attacks targeting military personnel in a country that is grappling with several armed revolts and negotiating a difficult political transition.

Nine people were found dead in two brutal incidents in Iraq Sunday -- one where militants forced Shiite policemen to pray before killing them, and another where decapitated heads were left in a market.

The violence is among the most shocking in Iraq's worst prolonged period of unrest since it emerged in 2008 from a Sunni-Shiite sectarian war, and comes with security forces also battling anti-government fighters in western Anbar province.

Australian officials Sunday blamed a "fairly major breakdown" in border security for the reported escape of a convicted terrorist through Sydney Airport to join the conflict in Syria.

New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell expressed concern after media reports that Khaled Sharrouf, who served almost four years in prison after pleading guilty over a 2005 conspiracy to attack Sydney, had fled the country.

A Palestinian militant was in critical condition after an Israeli air strike on central Gaza on Sunday that the army said targeted a "key" figure responsible for cross-border rocket fire.

The strike was the latest in a growing number of violent incidents in and around Gaza since the start of 2014, prompting an Israeli warning it will continue to strike anyone threatening its citizens.

Tunisian security forces arrested a suspect in the murder of opposition politician Mohamed Brahmi after a fierce gunbattle during an overnight raid on a militant hideout, the interior ministry's spokesman said Sunday.

Brahimi was the second of two opposition politicians to have been assassinated last year by suspected jihadists as Islamist violence rocked the North African country, which was the birthplace of the Arab Spring revolutions in 2011.

A popular Egyptian dissident leader under ousted president Mohammed Morsi said Saturday he will stand in upcoming elections, in a contest likely to pit him against army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Although the widely popular Sisi has yet to announce his candidacy, the field marshal is expected to contest and win presidential elections slated for mid-April.