KYIV, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Ukrainian and Russian negotiators began a second round of U.S.-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, seeking to advance efforts to end Europe's biggest conflict since World War Two.

The two-day trilateral meetings come after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russia had exploited a U.S.-backed energy truce last week to stockpile munitions, attacking Ukraine with a record number of ballistic missiles on Tuesday.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Pesha Magid

CAIRO/JERUSALEM, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes killed 18 people, including four children, in Gaza on Wednesday, and Israel halted the passage of patients through the Rafah border crossing, Palestinian officials said.

The Israeli military said tanks had fired on Gaza and airstrikes had been launched after a gunman shot at Israeli soldiers and seriously injured a reservist.

By Humeyra Pamuk and Idrees Ali

DUBAI, Feb 4 - Nuclear talks between the United States and Iran are expected to take place in Oman on Friday, a regional diplomat said, with a possible confrontation looming as U.S. President Donald Trump builds up forces in the Middle East.

Trump has warned that "bad things" would probably happen if a deal could not be reached, ratcheting up pressure on the Islamic Republic in a standoff that has led to mutual threats of air strikes and stirred fears of escalation into a wider war.

For Iraqis who lived through the 1990s, dictator Saddam Hussein's birthday on April 28 was a disorientating day of celebration and propaganda.

Parties were staged across the sanctions-hit country to mark the occasion, while many public squares and bridges around Baghdad were decorated with coloured lights.

State radio played endless songs to the glory of the ruthless national leader and callers were asked to recount improvised poems in his honour.

By Michael Georgy

Feb 3 (Reuters) - Libya's Saif al-Islam Gaddafi went from his notorious father's heir apparent to a decade of captivity and obscurity in a remote hill town before launching a presidential bid that helped derail an attempted election.

Saif al-Islam's office said in a statement on Tuesday that he had been killed during a "direct confrontation" with four unknown gunmen who broke into his home.

By Saleem Ahmed and Asif Shahzad

QUETTA, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Pakistan's security forces used drones and helicopters to wrest control of a southwestern town from separatist insurgents after a three-day battle, police said on Wednesday, as the death toll in the weekend's violence rose to 58.

Saturday's wave of coordinated attacks by the separatist Baloch Liberation Army brought Pakistan's largest province to a near standstill as security forces exchanged fire with insurgents in more than a dozen places, killing 197 militants.

Feb 4 (Reuters) - Pep Guardiola said he will continue to use his platform as Manchester City manager to speak up for victims of global conflicts and violence.

Guardiola was speaking at a pre‑match press conference ahead of City's League Cup semifinal second leg against Newcastle United, five days after he voiced support for children in the occupied Palestinian territories at a charity concert in Barcelona.

An unlikely love story blossoming in the thick of war provides the backdrop to a new documentary that raises questions about how modern media cover conflict.

"Birds of War" traces the growing relationship between Syrian activist-cameraman Abd Alkader Habak and Lebanese journalist Janay Boulos, who was working for the BBC in London as Syria's civil war unfurled.

What began as a strictly professional relationship -- on-the-ground activists were vital for international media whose journalists found it difficult to operate in Syria -- develops into something more.

When the first pieces of information circumvented a near-total blackout during Iran's protests last month, rights defender Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam was already ready to say the scale of the crackdown was "unbelievable".

"We have never experienced something like this," said the director of the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), which has been tracking rights violations in the Islamic republic for some two decades.

Feb 3 (Reuters) - The leader of the AFC/M23 rebel movement in Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday claimed responsibility on social media for a drone attack targeting the airport in the strategic northeastern city of Kisangani.

The government of Tshopo province, where Kisangani is located, said in a statement on Sunday that eight explosive‑laden drones had targeted the airport serving Kisangani.