A senior Iraqi general predicted a relatively easy victory for his forces in the upcoming battle for the Islamic State haven of Tal Afar as up 2,000 fighters and their families there are "worn out and demoralised".

Qatar Airways is expected to have access to three contingency routes over international waters in early August, after a UN-led meeting on Monday discussed air corridors for Doha following a rift with its neighbors, a source familiar with the matter said.

Qatar filed a wide-ranging legal complaint at the World Trade Organization on Monday to challenge a trade boycott by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates, the director of Qatar's WTO office Ali Alwaleed al-Thani told Reuters.

The Qatari authorities have accused Saudi Arabia of jeopardising the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca of Qatari pilgrims by refusing to guarantee their safety.

Nearly 90,000 Iranians are expected to attend the haj in Mecca this year, and were due to start arriving on Sunday, after Tehran boycotted the pilgrimage last year amid tensions with Saudi Arabia.

Iran on Saturday condemned new sanctions passed by the US Congress against its missile program, which President Donald Trump is set to sign into law, and vowed to continue it.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain, which have tried to isolate Qatar, said on Sunday they would allow Qatari planes to use air corridors in emergencies, but Doha denied it, saying they were spreading "false information".

A Saudi police officer was killed and six others wounded when a patrol came under attack in the town of Awamiya in eastern Saudi Arabia on Sunday morning, the interior ministry said.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday that U.S. Navy ships came close to their vessels in the Gulf and shot flares.

The Saudi Press Agency said that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud received in Jeddah on Sunday (July 30, 2017) leader of the Sadrist movement Moqtada Al-Sadr.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister called what he said was Qatar's demand for an internationalization of the Muslim hajj pilgrimage a declaration of war against the kingdom, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television said on Sunday, but Qatar said it never made such a call.

The four Arab countries that have cut ties with Qatar said on Sunday they were ready for talks to tackle the dispute if Doha showed willingness to deal with their demands.

Saudi forces launched the dawn of Wednesday (July 26, 2017) an unprecedented attack on Awamiyah, hometown of prominent martyr Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, whom authorities executed early last year.

Bahrain Watch said that Al-Jazeera Channel was targeted on Twitter by bot army. The organization published a report on its website saying that central to the Qatar Crisis has been the existence of Al Jazeera. Right from the beginning of the crisis, which was prompted by the alleged hacking of the Qatar News Agency by the UAE, Al Jazeera has been targeted by propaganda bots on Twitter.

The Guardian stated that the British government approved £283m of arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the six months after a Saudi airstrike on a funeral that killed scores of people and was criticized by the UN.

At least five people have been killed in eastern Saudi Arabia in two days, activists and a family member said on Thursday, as security forces begin an operation to flush out suspected Shi'ite militants from the town of Awamiya in Qatif province.

Saudi Arabia's top court has upheld the death sentences of 14 men convicted of armed attacks, all of them from the Sunni-ruled kingdom's Shi'ite Muslim minority, a local newspaper reported on Thursday.

Saudi Arabia must clarify whether they have imposed movement restrictions on former crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday, saying the kingdom should end all arbitrary travel bans and detentions of Saudi citizens.

A Saudi-led military coalition and the government of Yemen denied four oil tankers access to a Yemeni port last week, a move that could hurt the flow of aid and exacerbate a cholera outbreak in the country, a United Nations agency said.

GCHR asked his supporters to tweet calling on authorities in Bahrain to “immediately and unconditionally free Ibtisam Al-Saegh, allow her unhindered access to medical care while she remains in detention, allow her proper meetings with her family and lawyer and guarantee in all circumstances that human rights defenders in Bahrain are able to carry out their legitimate activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.”