Saudi authorities beheaded a citizen in the northeastern city of Arar on Sunday after he was convicted of murder, the interior ministry said.

Habib al-Shammari was accused of killing fellow tribesman Mishaal al-Shammari following a dispute, the ministry said in a statement published by the official SPA news agency.

An Indian worker convicted of murdering a Saudi was beheaded by the sword in the Riyadh region Thursday, the interior ministry said.

Mohammed Latif was found guilty of having beaten to death his "sponsor," Dhafer bin Mohammed al-Dussari, with a sharp object and then dumping his body in a well, it was quoted by state news agency SPA as saying.

Saudi health authorities announced Wednesday a new MERS death, bringing to 59 the number of people who have died from the coronavirus in the country with the most fatalities.

The Saudi national, aged 60, died in hospital in the Riyadh region, said the health ministry on its website, adding that he had suffered from chronic disease.

A court on Tuesday jailed a group of 30 Emiratis and Egyptians to terms ranging from three months to five years for forming a Muslim Brotherhood cell, a judicial source said.

The cell comprised 10 Emiratis and 20 Egyptians, including six who remain at large and were sentenced in absentia. The Egyptians will be deported after serving their sentences, the source told Agence France Presse.

Saudi Arabia, which backs Syrian rebels, on Monday rejected Iran's participation in the Geneva II peace talks unless Tehran backs efforts for a transitional government in war-torn Syria.

Iran did not "announce officially and openly its agreement (to)... the creation of a transitional government," said a Saudi official statement.

President Michel Suleiman hailed on Monday Saudi Arabia's grant to the Lebanese army, hoping that the international community will continue to support Lebanon's stability.

He said after a meeting with the diplomatic corps: “A national defense strategy is beginning to take shape through the Saudi grant.”

Saudi Arabia and the UAE gave their backing Sunday to a decision by Syria's main opposition to join peace talks in Switzerland, which both Gulf states said must lead to regime overthrow.

The so-called Geneva II meeting starting on Wednesday aims to set up a transitional government to end an almost three-year war estimated to have killed more than 130,000 people and forced millions from their homes.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed "diabolical" and "treacherous" Arab countries for a protracted surge in nationwide violence in a speech on Sunday, but stopped short of naming individual countries.

The premier said suicide bombers were coming to Iraq from as far afield as Morocco, Libya and Yemen, but did not single out countries he described as "evil" which he said were supporting violent extremists in Iraq.

An advisor to French President Francois Hollande was in Beirut on Friday for talks with top Lebanese officials on the $3 billion Saudi pledge to buy military equipment for Lebanon from France.

Emmanuel Bonne, who is Hollande's adviser on North Africa and the Middle East, arrived on a several day official visit. He will be joined in the next couple of days by Admiral Edouard Guillaud, the chief of the defense staff.

The U.S. embassy in Riyadh has warned its citizens against travelling to the Shiite village of Awamiya in eastern Saudi Arabia, where gunmen this week attacked the car of two German diplomats.

Berlin has said it has no reason to believe the Monday attack in Awamiya, in the Shiite-populated Eastern Province, was politically motivated.