President Nicolas Maduro vowed that a band of anti-government fighters who attacked a Venezuelan army base will get the "maximum penalty" as his administration roots out his enemies.

Troops killed two of the 20 intruders who slipped into the Paramacay base in the central city of Valencia early Sunday, apparently intent on fomenting a military uprising, Maduro said in his weekly broadcast on state television.

As U.S. President Donald Trump recently stood beside Prime Minister Saad Hariri praising his government for standing up to Hizbullah, the Iranian-backed group was busy demonstrating just how wrong he was. The group's fighters were clearing the country's eastern frontier from al-Qaida fighters in a sweeping offensive and negotiating a complex prisoner deal with the group.

Far from being an ally in the fight against Hizbullah, the Lebanese government headed by Hariri is based on a partnership with the Shiite group, whose clout and dominance in Lebanon is on the rise.

Iran's soccer federation condemned two Iranians who play for a Greek team on Friday for participating in a match against an Israeli team, Iranian media reported.

Venezuela's controversial "Constituent Assembly," a new legislative body with supreme powers packed with supporters of President Nicolas Maduro, began its first session in Caracas on Friday.

The assembly of 500-plus members, which is tasked with rewriting the crisis-wracked country's constitution, took its seats in an oval chamber under the golden dome of the capital's 145-year-old Legislative Palace.

The U.S. military in Afghanistan says that four American troops were wounded in the same suicide bombing near the city of Kandahar the previous day that killed two U.S. service members.

The statement released in Kabul on Thursday says their injuries are not life threatening.

Donald Trump once questioned the wisdom of taking vacations. "What's the point?" he asked.

But now the president is getting ready to join the annual August exodus from this town he calls "the swamp." Trump is due to set out Friday on his first extended vacation from Washington since the inauguration — a 17-day getaway to his private golf club in central New Jersey.

With his job on the line, President Michel Temer eked out a victory in a congressional vote over a bribery charge against him that has fueled angst and anger across Latin America's largest nation.

But there are more legal woes ahead and clear chinks in his governing coalition, so Temer will have little time to celebrate.

A committee of Syrian refugees in Lebanon's eastern border region says tens of thousands of the group will remain where they are despite an arrangement offered to them to return to Syria.

Raised voices could be heard through the thick door to the Oval Office as John Kelly — then secretary of Homeland Security — offered some tough talk to President Donald Trump.

Kelly, a whip-cracking retired general who was sworn in as White House chief of staff on Monday, had demanded to speak to the president alone after Trump complained loudly that the U.S. was admitting travelers from countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Haiti.

President Nicolas Maduro brushed off new U.S. sanctions on him and condemnation at home and abroad of the newly chosen constitutional assembly, saying the vote has given him a popular mandate to radically overhaul Venezuela's political system.

Maduro said Monday evening he had no intention of deviating from his plans to rewrite the constitution and go after a string of enemies, from independent Venezuelan news channels to gunmen he claimed were sent by neighboring Colombia to disrupt the vote as part of an international conspiracy led by the man he calls "Emperor Donald Trump."