At least 27 people were killed in an overnight raid by dozens of al Qaeda rebels on Yemeni government buildings and military posts in Seyoun, the second largest city in the south-eastern Hadramout province, a local official and residents said.

The armed group al-Shabab launched an assault on the Somali parliament in Mogadishu, setting off a car bomb and storming the complex in an attack which killed at least 10 people.

Pakistani fighter planes have bombed suspected Taliban hideouts in the tribal region of North Waziristan, killing at least 32 people, military sources have said.

The chief of Syria’s air defence forces, General Hussein Ishaq, has been killed in combat near Damascus, a security official has told news agencies.

An Egyptian court on Sunday sentenced 126 supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi to ten years in prison for involvement in violence in the Nile Delta province of Kafr al-Sheikh in August of last year.

The death toll from Friday’s clashes between forces loyal to former Libyan army commander Khalifa Haftar and an army-affiliated militia in Benghazi has risen to 43, according to an Anadolu Agency tally based on local hospital sources.

Saudi Arabia is considering trade sanctions against the Netherlands because of stickers printed by far-right politician Geert Wilders which display anti-Islam slogans in the colours of the Saudi flag, a Dutch foreign ministry spokesman said.

Opposition candidate Narendra Modi will be the next prime minister of India, with counting trends showing the pro-business Hindu nationalist and his party headed for the most resounding election victory the country has seen in thirty years.

At least 43 people have been killed in a car bombing near the border between Syria and Turkey, activists say.

At least eight Yemeni soldiers and 10 militants were killed in clashes on Wednesday when insurgents attacked two military posts in a southern province where a government offensive began two weeks ago, military sources said.