Speaker Nabih Berri urged al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri to speed up the Saudi military assistance to Lebanon, local dailies reported on Wednesday.

Earlier this month, Hariri announced from Saudi Arabia a grant of $1 billion for the Lebanese army to help its fight against militants.

Saudi police have arrested eight people in the northwest suspected of recruiting young people to join the Islamic State jihadist group in Iraq and Syria, the interior ministry said Tuesday.

Police in Tamir, 150 kilometers (100 miles) north of Riyadh, arrested eight people "who deluded young people into joining foreign extremist groups," the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal discussed Tuesday regional developments and the fight against Islamic State jihadists with a senior Iranian official visiting his country's longtime regional rival, an Iranian diplomat said.

The visit by Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to the city of Jeddah was the first by a high-level official from Shiite Iran to Sunni Saudi Arabia since Hassan Rouhani became the Islamic republic's president in August last year.

Saudi authorities beheaded a citizen in the eastern Qatif region on Tuesday after he was convicted of killing a fellow national, the interior ministry announced.

Mohammed al-Taroti killed Abdullah Abu Sarir by running him over in a car following a dispute, the statement published by the official SPA news agency said.

Arab foreign ministers held a meeting in Saudi Arabia on Sunday to discuss the Syrian conflict and the rise of "extremism" in the region, the official SPA news agency reported.

The meeting came as U.S. media reported that Washington, which has launched air raids in northern Iraq against Islamic State, could consider similar action against IS jihadists in Syria. 

The United States imposed sanctions Friday on two Islamic extremists it accuses of ties to al-Qaida and the al-Nusra Front, alleging they financed and acted on behalf of the terror groups.

Under a designation issued by the U.S. Treasury, any assets the men -- Saudi and Kuwaiti nationals -- hold under U.S. jurisdiction are frozen and Americans are "generally prohibited from doing business with them."

Police in Saudi Arabia have arrested at least 400 mostly African illegal migrants south of the capital Riyadh, local media reported on Friday.

The authorities have been cracking down on illegal migrants since the expiration in November of a seven-month amnesty during which they had to regularize their status or leave the kingdom.

A Saudi was beheaded for murder on Friday in the latest of a spate of executions this month that has drawn condemnation from human rights groups.

Othman al-Balawi was put to the sword in the northwestern city of Tabuk, an interior ministry statement carried by the official SPA news agency said.

The United Arab Emirates has toughened anti-terrorism laws, local media reported Thursday, as concerns mount worldwide about increasing violence being committed by radical Islamist groups.

A Pakistani national was beheaded by sword in the south west of Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for the murder of an Afghan, the interior ministry said.

Mohammed Ayub Ajab Khan was convicted of having killed Khair Mohammed Saz by striking him with several blows from a metallic object, according to a ministry statement carried by official SPA news agency.