A Saudi Arabian Tornado fighter crashed in the kingdom's Eastern Province during a training mission on Monday, but its crew survived, the defense ministry said.

The aircraft crashed at the King Abdul Aziz Airbase in Dhahran while on a "routine training mission," state news agency SPA quoted a ministry official as saying.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat's ties with Saudi Arabia are expected to improve after the Druze leader announced on Thursday that he will head to Riyadh soon.

“I think positive news will be revealed concerning this matter soon,” Jumblat said in comments published in As Safir newspaper.

The high-profile U.S. drone strike that killed American-born radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen was partly conducted from a secret air base in Saudi Arabia, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The base was established two years ago as part of U.S. efforts to intensify the pursuit of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, a grouping of the Yemeni and Saudi offshoots of the global terror network, the newspaper said.

A Saudi court in Eastern Province on Wednesday sentenced two Shiites to prison terms over riots in the predominantly Shiite district of Qatif, a judicial source said.

The sentences were among verdicts issued by the court in the case of five men accused of rioting.

A Saudi cleric has said baby girls should be veiled to avoid sexual harassment, in remarks broadcast on television that sparked outrage in the conservative kingdom.

"Girls should wear the veil from the age of two," said Abdullah Daoud on Islamic television al-Majd, adding that Saudis should follow the example of South Asian countries.

Saudi Arabia beheaded on Tuesday a man who had been on death row for three decades for beating to death a fellow Saudi, after the victim's family denied him clemency, the official SPA news agency said.

Abdullah bin Fandi al-Shammari was executed in the northern town of Hael, the agency said.

Defense lawyers Monday lost a bid to suspend proceedings at Guantanamo against the suspected mastermind of the USS Cole attack over revelations of outside government censorship.

The issue first arose last week in pre-trial hearings for five accused 9/11 plotters when Judge James Pohl disclosed that, without his knowledge, someone outside the court had cut an audiovisual feed of the proceedings after the subject of secret CIA prisons came up.

Saudi Arabia slammed an Israeli air strike that hit targets near Damascus as a "flagrant violation" against the war-torn country's territory, the kingdom's official SPA news agency reported Monday.

The Saudi cabinet "condemns the Israeli aggression against Syrian territories which it considers a flagrant violation against the territories of an Arab state and against its sovereignty," SPA reported.

Saudi King Abdullah on Friday appointed one of his brothers, Moqren bin Abdul Aziz, as a deputy prime minister, making him second in line to the throne, the official SPA news agency said.

"Prince Moqren bin Abdul Aziz, adviser and special envoy of the king, has been named second vice president of the Council of Ministers," said the SPA report.

Twitter's unmatched platform for public opinion is emboldening Gulf Arabs to exchange views on delicate issues in the deeply conservative region, despite strict censorship that controls old media.

The authorities have been attempting to limit the damage by handing out jail terms to some whose tweets have been deemed offensive in the Muslim states, including in Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.