A three-day workshop began in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to review the emergency Hajj plans taking into account the new developments and changes in the Hajj environment and the ongoing development projects in Holy Sites across the country.

Five people including a suicide bomber were killed and 36 wounded in a suspected attack by Kurdish militants on a major shopping and tourist district in central Istanbul on Saturday.

Dozens of people were killed in a series of airstrikes on the city of Raqqa in northern Syria on Saturday, a monitoring group and activists said, as Damascus and Moscow waged attacks on areas controlled by Daesh.

The US has stepped up its bombing in Afghanistan to roll back ISIL, who have expanded their territory outside of Iraq and Syria, according to a report.

At least 13 policemen were killed in an armed attack on a checkpoint in the North Sinai city of Arish on Saturday, Egypt’s interior ministry said in an official statement.

Russia says it will complete the withdrawal of most of its military contingent in Syria “in two to three days”, local media have reported.

At least 14 Palestinians have died and 36 were injured in a bus crash in southern Jordan, local media and medics reported, citing security officials.

President Vladimir Putin said on Monday “the main part” of Russian armed forces in Syria would start to withdraw, and instructed his diplomats to step up the push for peace as UN-mediated talks resumed in Geneva on ending the five-year war.

Israeli forces shot and killed three Palestinians during alleged attacks at the entrance of an Israeli settlement as deadly violence in the occupied territories continues unabated.

A car bomb tore through a crowded transport hub in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Sunday, killing at least 34 people and wounding 125 in the second such attack in the administrative heart of the city in under a month.