An influential Saudi cleric who once served for years as head of the kingdom's Shariah courts and whose ultraconservative views sparked outcry died on Wednesday, leaving behind a legacy that mirrored the kingdom's decades-long slide toward Wahhabism.

His family announced his death on Twitter, saying 90-year-ol Sheikh Saleh bin Mohammed al-Luhaidan died after battling an illness that was not disclosed. His funeral is taking place Wednesday in line with Islamic tradition of immediate burial.

A Katyusha rocket struck an Iraqi military base hosting U.S. troops at Baghdad's international airport on Wednesday, an Iraqi military statement said.

No damage or casualties were reported from the attack, the third in as many days since Monday's anniversary of a U.S. airstrike that killed top Iranian general Qassim Soleimani in Baghdad two years ago.

North Korea fired a suspected ballistic missile into the sea on Wednesday, the South Korean and Japanese militaries said, the first such launch in about two months and a signal that Pyongyang isn't interested in rejoining denuclearization talks anytime soon and would rather focus on boosting its weapons arsenal.

The latest launch came after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to further bolster his military capability — without disclosing any new policies toward the United States or South Korea— at a high-profile ruling party conference last week.

In a display of unity, the Biden administration and its European allies are beginning a series of meetings aimed at showing Russia that an invasion of Ukraine would be met with a forceful response.

Using virtually identical language, the U.S. and its European allies have several times in the past month issued joint and individual messages advising Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country will face "massive consequences" and "severe costs" if he goes ahead with further military intervention in Ukraine.

Lebanon's currency hit a new low Tuesday reaching 20 times its value on the black market since the economic meltdown began in late 2019 and likely throwing more people into poverty.

The pound was trading at 30,000 to 1 U.S. dollar on the black market as the economic crisis continues with no solution expected in the near future.

A top World Health Organization official says low hospitalization and death rates in South Africa due to the omicron variant cannot be considered a template for how the variant will fare as it surges in other countries.

Dr. Abdi Mahamud, COVID-19 incident manager at the U.N. health agency, notes a “decoupling” between case counts and deaths in the country, which first announced the emergence of the fast-spreading new variant.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has verbally attacked the king of Saudi Arabia, saying Riyadh helped spread extremist Islamic ideology worldwide and is taking the thousands of Lebanese who work in the Gulf region "hostage."

Nasrallah's statements during a televised speech came in response to comments by King Salman, who called on the Lebanese in a speech last week "to end the terrorist Hizbullah's control" of Lebanon.

A court in Canada has ruled that Iran should pay about $84 million in punitive damages to families of six people with Canadian citizenship or residency who were killed in the Iranian military's downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane in 2020.

The military's shootdown of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 with two surface-to-air missiles killed all 176 people on board. Over 100 of the Iranian victims had Canadian citizenship or residency, prompting some families of the victims to sue Iran in Canadian civil court.

Two Israeli pilots were killed when a navy helicopter crashed off Israel's Mediterranean coast late Monday near the northern city of Haifa, the Israeli military announced.

The helicopter was conducting a training flight when it crashed. A third crew member, an aerial observer, was moderately injured and evacuated to a hospital, the military said early Tuesday. "After extensive resuscitation efforts, the two pilots were declared dead."

Yemen's Houthi rebels seized a ship in the Red Sea, armed drones targeted Baghdad's international airport, and hackers hit a major Israeli newspaper Monday - a string of assaults that showed the reach of Iran-allied militias on the second anniversary of America's killing of a top Iranian general.

All three coincided with a massive memorial in Tehran for Qassem Soleimani, the general killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2020 in Iraq. Iran's hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi demanded former U.S. President Donald Trump be "prosecuted and killed."