A Bahraini court on Monday jailed 37 Shiites for up to 15 years for carrying out "terrorist crimes" in the kingdom, home to a two-year-old uprising, a judicial source said.

The criminal court in Manama sentenced four of the defendants to 15 years in prison. It jailed six for 10 years and handed five-year jail terms to 27 others, the source said, adding that only two were acquitted.

Kuwait's interior ministry Monday warned stateless residents against demonstrating to mark the international day of non-violence on October 2, warning it will deal firmly with protesters.

Online activists have been urging stateless residents of the oil-rich Gulf state, known locally as bidoons, to demonstrate peacefully to renew their demands for Kuwaiti citizenship and basic rights like education and healthcare.

A senior official in Sudan's ruling party on Monday spoke out against an "unnecessary" deadly crackdown on demonstrators protesting fuel price hikes, saying the government should have instead encouraged dialogue.

"The fact that so many have died points to the degree of violence," the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity, in comments that reflect divisions within the governing National Congress Party (NCP).

Israeli President Shimon Peres said on Monday that arch-foe Iran's bid to allay Western fears over its nuclear program should be judged "by deeds" rather than a mere charm offensive.

Peres was speaking in The Hague during a three-day official trip to the Netherlands, ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House.

Al-Qaida militants seized army headquarters in Yemeni port city Mukalla Monday, killing two soldiers and taking many more hostage, in their second major assault in 10 days, military officials said.

Militants from al-Qaida-linked Ansar al-Sharia stormed the seaside base after a suicide bomber rammed a car into the entrance, a military official said.

A team of U.N. experts investigating the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria crossed into Lebanon on Monday at the end of their mission, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

The team, which arrived in Syria last Wednesday, is due to submit a report next month about seven alleged chemical weapons attacks during the conflict in Syria.

A Cairo appeals court on Monday upheld a one-year sentence handed to former Egyptian premier Hisham Qandil, in the latest blow to ousted president Mohammed Morsi's inner circle.

Qandil is accused of failing to execute a court ruling ordering the annulment of a public company's sale and the reinstatement of its employees.

Saudi authorities beheaded a citizen in Riyadh on Monday after he was convicted of murder, the interior ministry said.

The man, Mazyad al-Obeidi, shot dead a Saudi national following an argument, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

Britain, France and China will be involved in a peace conference on Syria due in Geneva in November, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Monday.

The U.S-Russia peace initiative, dubbed Geneva 2, will involve all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Fabius told France Inter radio, rebuffing a claim by Syrian President Bashar Assad that the Europeans had no role to play.

Gunmen in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, a hotbed of Islamist militant activity, killed three policemen and a soldier on Monday while shooting dead a civilian in another attack, officials said.

Masked attackers shot three policemen guarding a police station in the North Sinai town of El-Arish before fleeing, a security official said.