Suspected Islamists shot dead nine students as they sat an exam in an attack on a private school in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria, local people said Tuesday.

The attack, in a region that is a stronghold of the Islamist rebel group Boko Haram, happened on Monday in the Jajeri suburb of the city, they said.

The Taliban on Wednesday claimed responsibility for an overnight attack in Afghanistan that killed four U.S. troops, just hours after Washington said its officials would meet the insurgents for talks.

U.S. President Barack Obama earlier welcomed the planned talks as "important first step" but warned of a long and bumpy road ahead as Afghan and NATO troops continue to battle a 12-year insurgency.

Fiji has offered more than 500 troops to the U.N. Golan Heights peacekeeping force after several countries withdrew because of the spillover from the Syria conflict, diplomats said Tuesday.

Fiji will supply 170 troops this month to replace Japanese and Croatian soldiers who have left in previous weeks. Diplomats said it has also offered to replace the 370 troops that Austria is withdrawing.

Barack Obama arrived for his first visit as U.S. president to Berlin on Tuesday for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a major open-air speech at the city's Brandenburg Gate.

Obama arrived at Berlin's Tegel Airport from Northern Ireland where he and Merkel took part in a G8 summit dominated by the bloodshed in Syria and a bid by the European Union and the United States to create the world's biggest free trade area.

Two rockets fired from Syrian territory hit on Tuesday the eastern region of Bekaa, a security source told Agence France Presse.

"Two rockets landed in the Brital countryside and the nearby Taybeh valley," the source said on condition of anonymity. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damages.

Jordan's King Abdullah II has endorsed a treaty with Britain expected to pave the way for the extradition of radical cleric Abu Qatada who has resisted deportation for the past decade, official Petra news agency reported Tuesday.

Petra said the king issued a royal decree "endorsing the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters between Jordan and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

The five defendants accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks refused to appear Tuesday at a Guantanamo hearing to lay the groundwork for their eventual trial.

The men on Monday attended the first of five days of pre-trial hearings, held in a courtroom at the remote U.S. naval base in Cuba.

French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday that Iranian president-elect Hassan Rowhani would be welcome at Syria peace talks "if he can be useful".

"Let's wait for the new president's statements," Hollande said at the end of a G8 summit, adding: "My position is that if he can be useful, yes, he would be welcome" at a peace conference mooted for later this year in Geneva.

Six people belonging to Tunisia's hardline Salafist movement have each been handed five year jail sentences for torching an important Sufi shrine, the country's Sufi union said on Tuesday.

"It's the first time such a sentence has been pronounced. It shows that the law can be applied in Tunisia when the political will exists," Mohamed El Heni, one of the union's leaders, told Agence France Presse.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned world powers on Tuesday against holding "drawn out" negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program following the election of a more moderate president in Tehran.

"Iran should not be allowed to gain time by holding drawn out talks" with the international community, Netanyahu said during a meeting with Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, the prime minister's office said in a statement.