Australia and New Zealand warned on Thursday that extremists may be planning an attack on the commemoration of a World War I campaign that is being held in Turkey this month.

Australian Veterans Affairs Minister Dan Tehan urged the nearly 500 Australians and New Zealanders registered to travel to Gallipoli, Turkey, to mark ANZAC Day on April 25 to exercise a high degree of caution amid the warning, but offered no specifics about the alleged threat. ANZAC Day is an annual holiday commemorating the April 25, 1915, landings in Gallipoli — the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during World War I.

Syria's regime and Russia hit back Thursday at accusations that Damascus was behind a deadly chemical weapons attack, as pressure built for international action over what Washington called an "affront to humanity."

The energy-rich Gulf nation of Qatar says it plans to boost production from a vast underwater natural gas field by 10 percent.

State-run Qatar Petroleum said Monday the increase would give the 2022 World Cup host capacity to export some 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day from the North Field.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned Israel's enemies not to test its military capabilities at a ceremony inaugurating a joint U.S.-Israeli missile interceptor.

Syria's Palestinian refugee population has fallen by one-fifth since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011 and many of those who stay in Syria have been displaced, the U.N.'s Palestinian relief agency said Friday.

UNRWA Director Pierre Krahenbuhl said there are 440,000 refugees in Syria, compared to 560,000 in the country before the war.

Voting is underway in 19 by-elections in Myanmar, in the first test of the popularity of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy since it formed the government a year ago.

Nine of the contested seats are in the Lower House, three are in the Upper House and the rest are in state and regional assemblies in ethnic minority areas.

Lebanon will present a comprehensive plan to help alleviate the enormous burden of Syrian refugees at an upcoming Syria conference in Brussels, but needs urgent international support to avoid collapse, Prime Minister Saad Hariri said.

Speaking to a group of journalists ahead of the April 5 European conference in Brussels on supporting the future of Syria, Hariri warned on Friday that Lebanon faces serious security and economic issues and has reached breaking point.

Islamic State group and al-Qaida-linked militants are quickly moving to drum up outrage over a sharp spike in civilian casualties said to have been caused by U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, posting photos online of a destroyed medical center and homes reduced to rubble. "This is how Trump liberates Mosul, by killing its inhabitants," the caption reads.

The propaganda points to the risk that rising death tolls and destruction could undermine the American-led campaign against the militants.

Two Syrians were killed on Thursday when a blast ripped through a pickup truck they were riding in the Bekaa border town of Arsal, media reports said.

Between a collection of concrete buildings with Arabic graffiti that are designed to simulate a typical Lebanese village, dozens of Israeli officers are gearing up for their next battle with Hizbullah guerrillas.