Syrian President Bashar Assad made a visit on Thursday to the town of Daraya outside Damascus, a former rebel bastion now mainly under government control, state television reported.

The broadcaster aired no immediate footage to accompany its report.

A U.S. drone killed four a-Qaida supects in Yemen Thursday, a security official said, the third such strike in five days as the Yemeni president prepared for White House talks.

Yemen's U.S.-backed campaign against al-Qaida in the Arabian Pensinsula (AQAP) was expected to be high on the agenda of Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi's talks with President Barack Obama later on Thursday.

The United States on Wednesday denounced as "repulsive" an Instagram site by Syrian President Bashar Assad, saying it did not reflect the reality of the civil war.

The embattled Syrian leader's office took to the social media site to post pictures that include Assad greeting supporters and his wife Asma comforting the injured.

U.N. inspectors will go to Syria to investigate three sites where chemical weapons attacks have been reported, the United Nations said Wednesday.

The Syrian government has blocked the inspectors since calling for a U.N. inquiry into the use of the banned arms in March.

Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said on Wednesday he had decided not to carry out an announced cabinet reshuffle aimed at resolving a political crisis and ending a wave of violence.

"After examining the possible repercussions of such a move, we have chosen not to change the make-up of the government," Zeidan told a press conference.

The United States on Wednesday urged Egypt to respect freedom of assembly following violence but lawmakers defeated a bid to cut aid over the ouster of elected president Mohammed Morsi.

Egypt's army-backed cabinet issued orders to end two sit-ins in Cairo squares, calling them a "threat to national security," days after 82 pro-Morsi protesters were shot dead.

Violence in Iraq killed 989 people in July, government figures released on Wednesday showed, making it the deadliest month since April 2008.

The dead comprised 778 civilians, 88 police, 55 soldiers and 68 insurgents, according to the figures compiled by the health, interior and defense ministries.

Jihadist groups linked to al-Qaida have taken hostage around 200 Kurdish civilians after violent clashes with Kurdish fighters in two villages of eastern Syria, a monitoring group said.

"Fighters of Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) have seized control of Tall Aren village in Aleppo province and are laying siege to another village nearby, Tall Hassel," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

An African Union delegation in Cairo has met Egypt's deposed president Mohammed Morsi, the interim presidency and the team leader revealed on Wednesday.

"The whole delegation met with Morsi," the presidency said in a statement, giving no details on when and where the meeting took place.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday held a rare and previously unannounced meeting with Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan to discuss the situation in the Middle East, the Kremlin said.

"A wide number of questions regarding Saudi-Russia relations were discussed as well as the situation in North Africa and the Middle East," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies.