A separatist commander in eastern Ukraine was killed along with several other fighters after their car came under attack Saturday, rebel authorities announced.

The defense ministry of the self-proclaimed Lugansk republic confirmed that Alexey Mozgovoy, the commander of a police battalion in the war-torn region, was among the dead and said it was hunting for the assailants behind the attack.

Monaco, locked in a three-way tussle with Saint-Etienne and Marseille, booked the third and final French ticket to next season's Champions League thanks to a season-closing 1-0 win over Lorient on Saturday.

A first-half goal by Yannick Ferreira Carrasco was enough to help the Principality side clinch a place in the play-offs as they remain third in the table, two points ahead of Marseille and Saint-Etienne.

The seat of the Maronite patriarchate of Bkirki is expected to witness a “demonstration” by March 14 lawmakers aimed at voicing their condemnation of the ongoing vacuum in the presidency, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal on Sunday.

The meeting at Bkirki will be crowned with a speech by Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi during which he will urge officials to elect a new head of state, parliamentary sources from the Mustaqbal bloc told the daily.

Thousands of Arabs marched in northern Israel on Saturday to protest against the death sentence issued in Egypt against ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Organisers said 5,000 people took part in the demonstration led by Sheikh Raed Salah, a firebrand preacher who heads the Islamist Movement's radical northern wing.

Gunmen shot dead a Somali member of parliament and wounded another in the capital Mogadishu Saturday, security officials said, the latest in a string of assassinations of politicians in the war-torn country.

Lawmaker Yusuf Dirir Abdi was driving with another MP through the streets of the capital when gunmen in a minibus -- apparently done up to look like an ambulance -- pulled alongside and sprayed the vehicle with bullets, killing Abdi, and wounding his colleague and driver.

Nigeria's military on Saturday claimed the killing of scores of Boko Haram insurgents and the rescue of 20 more hostages during an operation in the notorious Sambisa forest, an Islamist stronghold.

"Despite continuous encounter with large number of land mines which still litter the Sambisa forest, troops have forged ahead...as scores of the terrorists died in the assault on their bases on Friday," a defense ministry statement said. 

A number of Syrian opposition factions will gather in Cairo next month to form a new coalition as an alternative to an exiled West-backed alliance, officials said Saturday.

More than 200 figures from the armed and civilian opposition factions are to attend the June 8-9 gathering and discuss a roadmap aimed at ending the four-year war in Syria.

At least 11 Turkish police officers were injured in clashes with Islamist demonstrators in the Kurdish-majority southeast who were protesting the death sentence given by an Egyptian court to former president Mohamed Morsi, the provincial governor said Saturday.

The protesters had gathered outside a mosque in the Diyarbakir province following Friday prayers and read out a statement denouncing the verdict, chanting "God is great", an Agence France Presse photographer said. 

United Nations officials in the Horn of Africa port of Djibouti said Saturday they had taken charge of the aid cargo carried by an Iranian boat headed for war-torn Yemen.

The vessel, the MV Shahed, is carrying 2,500 tonnes of aid including flour, rice, canned food, medical supplies and bottled water, all urgently needed in the conflict-wracked state just across the Gulf of Aden from Djibouti.

French hopes of a first male singles champion at the French Open since Yannick Noah in 1983 are looking slim this year due to injuries and loss of form.

The so-called "golden generation" of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gael Monfils, Richard Gasquet and Gilles Simon all have their worries and the gap between them and the top quartet has seldom seen wider.