Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made a lightning stop in Riyadh on Monday night to wish the ailing Saudi King Abdullah good health, official media reported.

Sisi arrived from the United Arab Emirates where he had addressed a conference about the fight against "terrorism".

Saudi Arabia on Monday beheaded a convicted Pakistani heroin smuggler, the third person from his country executed for the crime this year.

Yassir Arafat Munir Ahmed was executed in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Saudi border guards have been given orders to shoot infiltrators on sight after three troopers were killed on the Iraqi frontier earlier this month, a spokesman said on Monday.

The orders apply to guards patrolling the southern border with Yemen as well as the northern frontier with Iraq, Major General Mohammed al-Ghamdi told AFP.

Saudi and United Arab Emirates security agents have disrupted a heroin trafficking network, seizing large amounts of the drug and arresting two Pakistani nationals, Riyadh's interior ministry said Sunday.

The gang specialized "in the smuggling of raw heroin from the United Arab Emirates to the kingdom," the ministry said in a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency.

The U.S. military will send more than 400 troops to train Syrian rebel forces as part of a long-planned effort to build up a moderate opposition to take on the Islamist State group, the Pentagon said Friday.

Saudi Arabia beheaded one of its citizens Friday for shooting dead a compatriot with a machine gun, officials said, bringing to 10 the number of executions in just over two weeks.

Murdi al-Shakra had been tried and sentenced to death for murdering fellow tribesman Faraj al-Shakra, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

Saudi Arabia postponed Friday the next round of flogging for a blogger sentenced to 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam because his wounds from last week's beating have not yet healed, his wife said.

The public flogging of Raef Badawi, who is also serving a 10-year jail sentence, has sparked an international outcry and a campaign by Amnesty International and other rights groups to free him.

Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji expressed on Thursday resentment from false news in publications, stressing that the two Saudi grants are on the right track.

“The weapons that are delivered to us as part of the two grants are new,” Qahwaji stressed in comments published in al-Mustaqbal newspaper.

Canada's top diplomat on Wednesday voiced concern at the flogging of a Saudi blogger for "insulting Islam" and urged Riyadh to show clemency.

Raef Badawi, 31, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison as well as 1,000 lashes. 

Saudi Arabia on Wednesday beheaded a convicted Pakistani drug trafficker and one of its own citizens who killed a soldier.

Their cases bring to nine the number of executions this year, according to an AFP tally.