Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation all condemned on Tuesday the twin bombings at the Boston Marathon, calling them an act of terrorism.

Three people were killed and more than 170 wounded in the bombings in the worst attack in the United States since the September 11, 2001 atrocities.

Bombings in Iraq, including one near a governor's convoy, killed eight people on Tuesday a day after a wave of attacks left 50 dead ahead of the first elections since U.S. troops withdrew.

A car bomb killed four people and wounded 15 in Aziziyah, while a roadside bomb killed a soldier and wounded two near Mussayib, both south of the capital, security and medical officials said.

Belgium went on the offensive Tuesday against radical Islamist recruitment networks, staging dozens of early morning raids and several arrests of individuals suspected of sending foreign fighters to the Syrian front.

More than 200 police carried out 48 early raids in the northern port city of Antwerp and in Vilvorde just outside Brussels, home to most of the 80 young Belgians known to have departed for Syria in recent months.

A powerful earthquake struck southeastern Iran on Tuesday, killing at least 34 people across the border in Pakistan and shaking buildings as far away as the Gulf and New Delhi.

The quake, measured at magnitude 7.8 by the U.S. Geological Survey, damaged hundreds of mud-built buildings in remote southwestern Pakistan and comes a week after another struck near Iran's Gulf port city of Bushehr, killing at least 30 people.

A Saudi diplomat held hostage by al-Qaida in Yemen for more than a year has urged the kingdom to secure his release, in a new video published by the extremist network's media arm.

Abdullah al-Khalidi, Saudi's deputy consul in the southern port of Aden, was dressed in a traditional black outfit and appeared to be in good health in the 19-minute video interview by al-Malahem Media, apparently produced between February and March.

Algeria's former head of state Ali Kafi, who was appointed after president Mohamed Boudiaf's assassination in 1992 and held office during a bloody period in the country's civil war, died Tuesday aged 85.

Kafi, an army colonel who headed the military-backed High Committee of the State (HCE) until his replacement by Liamine Zeroual in 1994, died "in Geneva following an illness," the presidency said in a statement.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday urged Kuwait to drop charges against people accused of offending the emir, a day after a former MP was handed a jail term for insulting the Gulf state's ruler.

"The Kuwaiti authorities should drop criminal charges against dozens of online activists, journalists, and politicians for legitimately exercising their rights to freedom of expression," HRW said in a statement.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has declared an amnesty, and troops who deserted but did not fight against the regime may be pardoned if they surrender within a month, state news agency SANA reported.

"President Assad has issued decree number 23, granting a general amnesty for crimes committed before April 16, 2013," said the agency.

Pro-regime television channel Al-Ikhbariya will air an interview with Syria's President Bashar Assad on Wednesday, the broadcaster said.

"Syria's Al-Ikhbariya has conducted an exclusive interview with President Bashar Assad... and it will be broadcast on Wednesday... at 9:30 pm (1830 GMT)," the channel said on its Facebook page.

The head of an extremist Jordanian Muslim Salafist group said early Tuesday that he was "happy to see the horror in America" after the explosions in Boston.

"American blood isn't more precious than Muslim blood," said Mohammad al-Chalabi, who was convicted in an al-Qaida-linked plot to attack U.S. and other Western diplomatic missions in Jordan in 2003.