President Mohamed Morsi has replaced 17 of Egypt's governors, including the choice in Luxor of a member of an Islamist party linked to a deadly attack on tourists in the ancient temple city, reports said Monday.

Among the new appointees were members of the Muslim Brotherhood from which Morsi hails, the reports said, in a move that tightens the group's grip on key administrative and security posts.

Russia said on Monday it would not permit a no-fly zone to be implemented over Syria, following reports that plans for such a measure were being drawn up by the United States.

"We saw with the example of Libya how such a zone is introduced and how such decisions are implemented. We do not want a repeat of this in respect to the Syria conflict. I think that we will not permit in principle such a scenario," Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters.

Kuwait's supreme court on Monday sentenced to death two police officers convicted of torturing a citizen to death, overturning terms of life imprisonment issued by lower courts.

The court jailed four other officers for 15 years each and a fifth for two years, and also ordered their dismissal from the police force, according to a written verdict.

Discussions by Western countries on arming Syria's rebel fighters are "incitement to murder," Syria's deputy foreign minister, Faisal Muqdad, said on Monday.

"This is the principle of those who want continued killing in Syria," Muqdad told al-Watan newspaper, after the United States said it would provide "military support" to the rebel side.

Saudi authorities beheaded a Syrian on Monday after he was convicted of smuggling drugs into the kingdom, the interior ministry said.

Ali Derbalah was arrested as he was "smuggling a large amount of banned pills into the kingdom," the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency. It did not specify the type of pills he was accused of smuggling.

Outgoing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was on Monday summoned to appear before the criminal court following a complaint lodged by parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, the government website announced.

The summon orders Ahmadinejad to appear before the court on November 26, website Dolat.ir said.

Bombings near Baghdad killed at least 10 people Monday in a second day of deadly violence that, coupled with a prolonged political stalemate, has spurred fears of a revival of full-blown sectarian war.

The attacks in Taji and Fallujah struck a day after a string of car bombs and shootings, mostly in the Shiite-majority southern Iraq, killed 33, the latest in a surge in nationwide unrest with violence at its highest levels since 2008.

Four people have died from the MERS virus in Saudi Arabia, bringing the death toll from the SARS-like virus in the kingdom to 32, the health ministry said on its website Monday.

Two people died in the western city of Taif and the other two were pronounced dead in Eastern Province, where most cases have been registered, said the statement.

An Emirati military jet crashed during a routine training mission in the Gulf country, killing the pilot, the UAE Armed Forces General Headquarters said in a statement.

"Competent authorities were inspecting the scene to investigate causes of the accident," said the statement published by the official WAM news agency late on Sunday.

Five Syrians from a New York-bound EgyptAir flight escorted by fighter jets to a Scottish airport after the discovery of a suspicious note are seeking asylum in Britain, police and the airline said Sunday.

Police Scotland confirmed that five passengers had not rejoined the flight as it continued its journey from Cairo and were being dealt with by the UK Border Agency, the BBC reported.