Damascus "will comply" with a U.N. Security Council resolution ordering the destruction of the country's chemical arsenal, President Bashar Assad said in remarks published by state news agency SANA.

"Of course we will comply with it, and history proves that we have always honored all treaties we have signed," Assad said during an interview with Italian broadcaster Rai News 24, whose content was published by SANA.

Saudi Arabia's aging King Abdullah, whose reduced public appearances have sparked health scares, held an audience in the Red Sea resort of Jeddah Sunday, the official SPA news agency reported.

The 90-year-old monarch met princes and religious scholars at the al-Salam royal palace six days after the kingdom celebrated its national day, an event he did not attend.

Israeli police on Sunday caught four young Israelis red-handed as they vandalized Christian tombstones in a cemetery in the holy city of Jerusalem, a spokesman said.

"Four Israeli Jews aged between 17 and 26, including two from settlements in the West Bank, were arrested as they broke tombstones in a Christian cemetery on Mount Sion," Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse.

Two people were arrested following the protests that greeted Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's return from the United States after his landmark phone call with President Barack Obama, media reported Sunday.

Dozens of young Islamists had gathered at Tehran airport to vent their frustration after the moderate president spoke to his American counterpart in the first such direct discussion in more than three decades.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed for the United States on Sunday determined to use White House talks and a key U.N. speech to counter "sweet talk" by arch-foe Iran.

Netanyahu has been dismissive in his response to a drive by Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani to mend fences with the international community that culminated in a historic 15-minute telephone conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday.

Sudan vowed Sunday to stand firm on its decision to hike fuel prices, despite days of deadly protests and criticism from within the ruling party and from hardline Islamic leaders.

Authorities say 33 people have died since petrol and diesel prices jumped last Monday, sparking the worst protests in the history of President Omar al-Bashir's regime.

Militants killed six people in the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region Sunday in a rare attack on an area usually spared the violence plaguing other parts of the country.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's spokesman said the deadly attack may be linked to the bloody civil war in neighboring Syria, where jihadists have battled Kurdish forces.

Three army and police officers died in separate attacks in Benghazi Sunday, the latest in a string of attacks against security forces in Libya's second city, a security official said.

"Air force Lieutenant Colonel Ali al-Daghani was killed when a device placed in his car exploded near a market," said Abdullah al-Zayedi, a spokesman for the security forces.

Jordan has protested to Syria after a shell landed in the kingdom's north during clashes between the Syrian army and rebels, the information minister said on Sunday.

"The foreign ministry has sent a written protest to the Syrian embassy in Amman after a shell landed Thursday night on Al-Falah mosque, near the industrial park in the northern city of Ramtha," Mohammad Momani said in a statement carried by state-run Petra news agency.

A Bahraini court on Sunday sentenced 50 Shiites to up to 15 years in jail, including a prominent Iraqi cleric, for forming a clandestine opposition group, a judicial source said.

Sixteen defendants were handed 15-year terms, while four others were jailed for 10 years and the other 30 sentenced to five years behind bars, the source said.