Crowds of Algerians defied a massive police deployment Friday to protest against the government, buoyed by the national football team's qualification for the Africa Cup of Nations semi finals.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad said Friday discussions would "continue" over the composition of a body to draw up a post-war constitution for the country.

An upcoming U.N. report featuring a blacklist of child rights violators is expected to refrain from toughening criticism of the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen despite a bus bombing last year that killed scores of children, according to diplomats.

The United Nations said Friday it was "alarmed" at death sentences given by a court run by Yemen's Huthi rebels to 30 academics, trade unionists and preachers for alleged spying.

Britain will send a second warship to the Gulf, officials said Friday, temporarily deploying two vessels near Tehran's waters as tensions surge after armed Iranian boats threatened a British oil tanker.

At least 10 civilians were killed Friday in Syrian regime air strikes in the country's northwest, including three children, a war monitor said.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Thursday strongly condemned air strikes in northwest Syria following reports that four health facilities were hit during a single day of bombing.

Libya's internationally recognised government on Thursday demanded urgent answers after Paris conceded French missiles were found at a base used by strongman Khalifa Haftar whose forces are fighting to take over the capital Tripoli.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed Iran's "malign" actions, the White House said Thursday, as escalating tensions between Tehran and Washington threatened to torpedo a landmark 2015 nuclear agreement.

A car bomb detonated near a church in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeast Syria on Thursday wounding almost a dozen people, an AFP journalist and state media said.