Ghazwan al-Atman thought he had found refuge in Manbij after years of displacement, but he now fears his family will be uprooted once again as a threatened Turkish onslaught looms over the Syrian town.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has repeatedly vowed to launch a new offensive in northern Syria in what he says is an operation to protect his country from Kurdish militias who have been waging a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.

A Russian air strike killed seven people, four of them children, in Syria's rebel-held Idlib region on Friday, a war monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deaths "including four children who are siblings, two men and an unidentified person... as a result of Russian air strikes", in the Jisr al-Shughur countryside of northern Syria.

Ayhman Mozan, 31, lost all four of his children in the attack that destroyed his home.

A Saudi who allegedly helped a non-Muslim enter the holy city of Mecca has been arrested, police in the kingdom said on Friday, after online backlash against an Israeli journalist.

The journalist, Gil Tamary of Israel's Channel 13, on Monday posted to Twitter video of himself sneaking into Mecca, Islam's holiest city, in defiance of a ban on non-Muslims.

Dublin's Special Criminal Court was on Friday expected to sentence former soldier Lisa Smith, who was found guilty of joining the so-called Islamic State (IS) group in Syria.

The 40-year-old mother of one from Dundalk on Ireland's east coast, was convicted in May of belonging to the terror group between October 28, 2015 and December 1, 2019.

She faces a maximum sentence of eight years for membership of a proscribed terrorist organisation. Her lawyer said Smith's offence was at the lower end of the scale and has urged the judges to consider imposing a suspended sentence.

For years, Haitham al-Madini's house was like all the others on his block: a beige, nearly windowless facade sealed off from the outside world -- as Saudi Arabia itself largely was.

But two years ago, confined during a pandemic lockdown, Madini decided to open things up, adding a street-facing patio, redoing the exterior walls in limestone and installing soft lighting in the entryway.

Tunisia's President Kais Saied, who staged a dramatic power grab last year against the country's political elite, is pushing to pass a constitution that would enshrine his one-man rule.

The former law professor and political outsider stood as an independent and won a landslide victory in the North African country's 2019 presidential vote, capitalising on his image as a clean operator in contrast to his graft-tainted rivals.

Tunisians will vote Monday on a constitution that would give President Kais Saied almost unchecked powers, a key moment in his plan to overhaul the political system in the birthplace of the Arab Spring.

The referendum takes place a year to the day after Saied sacked the government and suspended parliament in a decisive blow against the country's often chaotic young democracy.

His opponents have called for a boycott, but while observers have predicted most Tunisians will snub the poll, few doubt the charter will pass.

Britain's spy chief voiced doubt Thursday that a landmark 2015 nuclear accord with Iran can be revived, saying Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remained opposed despite marathon diplomacy with the United States.

"If we can get a deal it's probably the best means still available to constrain the Iranian nuclear program. I'm not convinced we're going to get there," MI6 chief Richard Moore told the Aspen Security Forum.

In a rare move, Iranian newspapers on Thursday criticised the country's morality police, tasked with ensuring respect for Islamic laws, after a viral video of a woman pleading for her daughter to be released.

The criticism emerged as public debate about the hijab, a required female head covering, resurfaced after local media reported measures that may indicate tighter controls.

The morality police patrol the streets with a mandate to enter public areas to check on implementation of the head scarf law and other Islamic requirements.

Britain's spy chief voiced doubt Thursday on reviving a landmark 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, saying Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remained opposed despite marathon diplomacy with the United States.

"If we can get a deal it's probably the best means still available to constrain the Iranian nuclear program. I'm not convinced we're going to get there," MI6 chief Richard Moore told the Aspen Security Forum.