UAE state energy company ADNOC's recently formed gas unit will launch on the Abu Dhabi stock market on Monday in a $2.5 billion initial public offering aimed at tapping high demand for the fuel.

Shares in ADNOC Gas, which only became operational at the start of this year, were heavily oversubscribed even after the offering was expanded from 4.0 to 5.0 percent of issued share capital in response to strong interest.

The Islamic State group still has up to 500 active fighters in Iraq, a senior military official estimated Sunday in the country where jihadist cells continue to launch sporadic attacks.

But Iraqi General Qais al-Mohamadawi, part of the anti-jihadist coalition, stressed that IS -- now based in remote desert and mountain hideouts -- has "lost its ability to attract new recruits".

The United Nations estimated in a report published last month that IS still has "5,000 to 7,000 members and supporters" across Iraq and neighbouring Syria, "roughly half of whom are fighters".

Iran's top diplomat on Sunday said "everything is ready" to implement a stalled prisoner exchange deal with the United States, which Washington promptly denied as a "cruel lie".

At least three US citizens are held in the country's prisons, according to Iran's judiciary and the US State Department.

"We have reached an agreement in recent days regarding the exchange of prisoners between Iran and the United States," Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told state broadcaster IRINN.

Iraq's prime minister on Sunday announced a campaign to combat the severe impacts of climate change on the water-scarce country, including by planting five million palms and trees.

Oil-rich but war-battered Iraq suffers from extreme summer heat, frequent droughts, desertification and regular dust storms, problems that are all exacerbated by a heating planet.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani told a climate conference that more than seven million Iraqis had already been affected by climate change and hundreds of thousands displaced by drought.

Saudi Arabia announced Sunday the creation of a new national airline, part of a plan to turn Riyadh into a global aviation hub rivalling regional leaders like Dubai and Doha.

Riyadh Air "aims to launch flights to more than 100 destinations around the world by 2030," the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

The Gulf kingdom is pursuing ambitious aviation goals as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's wide-ranging "Vision 2030" reform agenda, including more than tripling annual traffic to 330 million passengers by the end of the decade.

Qatar spied on a 2017 meeting between a former Swiss attorney general and FIFA president Gianni Infantino, amid fears it could be stripped of hosting last year's World Cup, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The emirate rejected the allegations, saying they were part of "smear campaigns" by European media.

But according to the NZZ am Sonntag weekly, an intelligence operation recorded the meeting in a luxury Bern hotel between Switzerland's top prosecutor at the time, Michael Lauber, and Infantino. The newspaper quoted official documents and other sources.

Iran's judiciary on Sunday confirmed a death sentence for a Swedish-Iranian dissident for "terrorism", a decision Stockholm denounced as "inhumane".

Habib Chaab has been held in Iran since October 2020 after he vanished during a visit to Turkey and was put on trial in Tehran -- which does not recognise dual nationality.

Chaab, convicted of "corruption on earth" for heading a rebel group, was sentenced to death on December 6.

On Sunday, the judiciary's Mizan Online website said Iran's Supreme Court had upheld the ruling.

The general secretary of the international union ITUC has been dismissed from his post over his links to a European Parliament graft scandal implicating Qatar, the confederation said.

Luca Visentini was arrested in December as part of the investigation into suspected corruption among MEPs involving Qatar and Morocco.

The 54-year Italian, who was detained for two days then released, but remained a suspect, was suspended by the board of the International Trade Union Confederation in December.

Saudi Aramco said on Sunday it achieved "record" profits totalling $161.1 billion last year, drawing an outraged response from activists warning about the ravages of climate change.

The mostly state-owned energy giant, the world's second most valuable company behind Apple, said in a filing with the Saudi stock market that net income for 2022 was up 46 percent from $110 billion in 2021.

Israeli airstrikes targeting a weapons depot in Syria killed an army officer and two pro-Iran fighters, a war monitor said, raising the death toll of the Sunday morning raid.

"Israeli strikes targeted a weapons depot belonging to pro-Iran forces located... between Tartus and Hama provinces," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that an air defence position was also targeted.