Tehran on Thursday denied a Bahraini claim it had found an Iranian drone in the sea near Saudi Arabia, and urged Manama to refrain from making "baseless accusations", the ISNA news agency reported.

It cited an unnamed foreign ministry source as denying Bahrain's assertion that the downed aircraft was Iranian.

Iran could face tightened sanctions within months after a U.S. congressional panel Wednesday adopted a measure targeting the nation's auto and mining industries as well as its foreign currency reserves.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed the Nuclear Iran Prevention Act, which would extend existing sanctions to the auto and mining sectors and allow the U.S. president to subject other Iranian industries, such as engineering, to similar restrictions.

The United States formally said for the first time on Wednesday that it had killed radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and three other U.S. citizens in anti-terror strikes abroad.

The acknowledgement that Washington targeted Awlaki in Yemen in September 2011 and that the three others were not directly targeted, but were also killed, came on the eve of a speech on terror policy by President Barack Obama.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called on Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday to commit to peace, but said support for the opposition will continue if he rejects talks.

"We would call on President Assad to make the same commitment to find peace in his country," Kerry told a joint press conference with his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh ahead of a meeting of the Friends of Syria group in Amman.

A man being questioned by the FBI over the Boston Marathon bombings was killed Wednesday in an altercation after becoming violent, the FBI said.

U.S. media outlets said the man knew one of the Boston bombers and was shot by an FBI agent in the early morning incident in Orlando, Florida.

A U.S. congress delegation is scheduled to arrive in Beirut in the upcoming few days to hold talks with senior officials over the situation in Lebanon and the region.

According to al-Joumhouria newspaper published on Wednesday, the delegation will also discuss the impact of the conflict in Syria on the neighboring countries including Lebanon.

The United States on Tuesday condemned Iran's disqualification of hundreds of would-be presidential candidates, accusing the "unaccountable" clerical leadership of seeking to tighten its grip on power.

"It appears that Iran's unelected Guardian Council, which is unaccountable to the Iranian people, has disqualified hundreds of potential candidates based on vague criteria," State Department deputy spokesman Patrick Ventrell said.

A hearing for Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev originally set for May 30th has been delayed until July 2, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Together with his older brother Tamerlan, the 19-year-old is accused of setting off twin blasts near the finish line of the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded more than 260 on April 15.

The United States said Tuesday it does not differentiate between Hizbullah's armed and political wings as it again urged Europe to blacklist the group, a decision diplomats indicated could be imminent.

A formal request to brand the party as a terrorist group was filed by Britain and is to be discussed at closed-door talks June 4 of a committee overseeing the EU list of people and groups subject to its asset freezing regime, European diplomats said.

An apparent U.S. drone strike killed two suspected al-Qaida militants in central Yemen on Monday, a local official said.

The attack took place in the Khobza area of the central province of Baida, the official said on condition of anonymity, adding that an American drone launched the attack.