Two babies have died of illness in the past week at a camp for displaced people on the Syrian border with Jordan, the United Nations children's agency UNICEF said Thursday.

Iraq's premier Monday marked a year since his country announced victory against the Islamic State militants by pledging to root out corruption and ensure hundreds of thousands of displaced return home.

Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani on Wednesday announced a 12-person team for prospective peace talks with the Taliban, as the UN renewed calls for direct negotiations between Kabul and the insurgents.

Air strikes by the US-led coalition Saturday killed 43 people, mostly civilians, in a holdout of the Islamic State group in eastern Syria, a Britain-based monitor said.

At least 149 people including civilians have been killed in 24 hours of clashes between government loyalists and rebels in Yemen's flashpoint city of Hodeida, medics and military sources said Monday.

At least 61 combatants have been killed in clashes in Yemen's flashpoint Hodeida, medics and a military source said Sunday, and dozens of wounded taken to hospitals outside the city.

Government troops and rebels clashed again Tuesday near a Yemeni port city crucial for humanitarian aid, where hundreds of thousands of civilians could be trapped as war closes in.

The Islamic State group killed 12 US-backed fighters in a surprise attack Sunday from the militants' holdout in eastern Syria on the Iraqi border, a Britain-based monitor said.

Gunmen have abducted six children from a school in Bamenda, the capital of the northwestern, English-speaking Northwest region of Cameroon, a teacher there told AFP.

Jordan on Monday reopened its main border crossing with war-torn Syria, a key Middle East trade route, after a three year closure, an AFP photographer reported.

After a month of militia clashes that left more than 100 people dead, Libya's UN-backed foreign minister on Friday called for the country's UN political mission to transform into a ‘security and stability’ support role.

More than 3,000 civilians have been killed in US-led coalition air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria since they began four years ago, a monitor said on Sunday.