Hundreds of Kuwaiti opposition activists rallied in the capital Monday demanding the release of a prominent leader and calling for democratic reforms in the oil-rich Gulf state.

The demonstrators called for the release of Mussallam al-Barrak, a former MP who last week started serving a two-year jail term on charges of insulting the ruler.

The Kuwaiti lawyer representing the father of alleged Islamic State group executioner "Jihadi John" said Sunday after filing lawsuits for his client that he has now withdrawn from the case.

"I have decided to withdraw from the case for personal reasons," Salem al-Hashash told a news conference lasting just a few minutes.

The United Arab Emirates said on Sunday it will try a Kuwaiti Islamist ex-MP in absentia for allegedly "inciting sedition" in remarks he made about Abu Dhabi's powerful crown prince.

Mubarak al-Duwailah has been referred to the Federal Supreme Court, the UAE's top court, for "allegedly abusing religion to incite sedition, harm national unity, (and) disturb social peace," WAM news agency reported Attorney General Salim Saeed Kubaish as saying.

Despite months of embarrassment for Egypt over a series of alleged leaks of sensitive remarks including about Gulf allies, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appears to have avoided a major diplomatic furore.

The tapes, aired by Islamist television channels, purportedly revealed conversations which followed the military's overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 when Sisi was army chief.

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Sigrid Kaag has said that Hizbullah violated Security Council Resolution 1701 when it attacked Israeli troops in the occupied Shebaa Farms area in January.

“The attack on the Israeli convoy is a clear violation of the cessation of hostilities between Lebanon and Israel,” Kaag told An Nahar newspaper in an interview published on Friday.

The top U.N. official for humanitarian aid, Valerie Amos, has informed Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas that Lebanon's demand to send Syrian refugees to safer areas inside Syria has been met with Russian and Chinese veto.

According to Derbas, Amos said she informed the major powers four times about Lebanon's request. But she was confronted with veto from the Russian and Chinese diplomats at the U.N.

The father of "Jihadi John" said in an interview published Wednesday that there was no proof that his son was the Islamic State executioner, adding there were a number of "false rumors" circulating.

"There is nothing that proves what is being circulated in the media, especially through video clips and footage, that the accused is my son Mohammed, who is being referred to as the alleged executioner of Daesh (Islamic State)," Jassem Emwazi told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas.

The Arab League will consider setting up a defense unit to battle the spread of the Islamic State group at its annual summit later this month, an official said Tuesday.

Deputy chief Ahmed Ben Helli told reporters that the March 28-29 meeting in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh will discuss an Egyptian initiative to create a "unified Arab force".

The London graduate believed to be Islamic State executioner "Jihadi John" once denounced the 9/11 attacks and the 2005 bombings in the British capital, according to an audio recording released Tuesday.

Kuwait-born Mohammed Emwazi was identified by media and experts last week -- and now, reportedly, also by his parents -- as the knife-wielding masked man in online videos showing the beheadings of at least five IS hostages.

Kuwaiti authorities are closely monitoring several relatives of "Jihadi John" who live and work in the Gulf emirate where the Islamic State executioner was born, press reports said on Sunday.

A number of relatives of Mohammed Emwazi, named as the militant who has beheaded at least five Western hostages, are working in Kuwait and like him hold British citizenship, Al-Qabas newspaper reported.