Two Saudi soldiers have been killed in a clash with unidentified gunmen who fired on them from across the border with Yemen, the interior ministry said Thursday.

A border guard patrol in the southwestern province of Asir "came under heavy gunfire on Wednesday morning from unknown sources inside Yemeni territory," said the ministry.

Saudi Arabia is considering ending its controversial ban on sports in girls' state schools, after its consultative council recommended the ban be lifted over vociferous opposition from traditionalists.

Following a heated debate on Tuesday, the Shura Council recommended that the longstanding ban, already relaxed in private schools in May last year, be ended altogether, state media reported.

Saudi health authorities have reported the deaths of another two men from the MERS coronavirus, bringing the death toll from the respiratory disease in the worst hit country to 66.

A 70-year-old national, who died in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, had also been suffering from chronic illnesses, the health ministry said in a late Sunday statement.

Saudi Arabia's supreme court has upheld a death sentence handed down against a teacher convicted of kidnapping and raping eight young girls, a local daily reported on Sunday.

A lower court in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah had found the man guilty last year of kidnapping girls aged between six and 11 from public areas and taking them to his home to rape them, the Makkah newspaper reported without giving his name.

When Ahmed Mater visited Mecca in 2010 something felt off. Dozens of cranes were eating away at the mosque to make way for a larger complex surrounding the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure to which observant Muslims pray toward five times a day that also draws millions of pilgrims annually from around the world.

The changes were irrevocably transforming the city's landscape. So Mater, a practicing physician and modern artist, took pictures. He titled his project "Desert of Pharan" in a nod to Mecca's ancient name.

A Saudi court sentenced to death on Wednesday the "chief strategist" of a wave of al-Qaida violence that erupted in the kingdom in 2003, a decade after his reported arrest.

Faris al-Zahrani had been in custody ever since his detention near the Yemeni border in 2004, the al-Madina newspaper reported on its website.

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday announced the suspension of visas for Muslim pilgrims from Guinea and Liberia, two African countries hit by an outbreak of the deadly Ebola epidemic.

The "preventive" measure came at the request of the Saudi health ministry "due to the danger of the disease and its highly contagious" nature, state news agency SPA reported.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday he had ordered an investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood over concerns that the group, declared a terrorist organization by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, is linked to violent extremism.

Key leaders of the group have been based in London since the toppling of the Islamist Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi last year and a crackdown that has seen hundreds killed and thousands arrested.

Saudi authorities have arrested three citizens who posted YouTube videos urging the oil-rich kingdom to improve their living standards and criticizing "corruption," activists said on Sunday.

The arrests were made on Saturday, the day U.S. President Barack Obama flew home from Saudi Arabia under fire for not having done more to raise human rights concerns during talks with King Abdullah, activists said.

U.S. President Barack Obama sought Friday to allay Riyadh's criticism of his policies on Syria and Iran, telling the Saudi king their two countries remain in lockstep on their strategic interests.

He also assured King Abdullah that the U.S. "won't accept a bad deal" with Iran, as global powers negotiate a treaty reining in Tehran's controversial nuclear program.