Belgian police raided homes in Brussels late Sunday and detained two people for questioning, Reuters reported. The two were arrested near the trendy Dansaert neighborhood in central Brussels in an investigation linked to militant attacks in Paris that killed 130 people in November, according to federal prosecutors. Those detained will go before a judge on Monday to determine whether they can be held further. Following the Paris attacks, the focus of the investigation turned to Belgium. Local police have arrested several people suspected of having aided the attackers.

Taliban gunmen have overrun a strategic district in the southern province of Helmand, AP reported Afghan officials as saying on Monday. Fighting in the Sangin district was continuing after the insurgents took control late Sunday, according to Mohammad Jan Rasulyar, Helmand’s deputy governor. The insurgents had not taken the only Afghan army facilities in the district, he said, adding that casualties among Afghan security forces were high. Rasulyar on Sunday warned President Ashraf Ghani on his Facebook page that Helmand was in danger of falling if central authorities failed to send help. In his open letter to Ghani, the official said that more than 90 members of the Afghan security forces died in fighting in the past month, with hundreds killed in the past six months. Helmand produces most of the world's opium.

The IDF has unleashed an artillery strike upon southern Lebanon, following a Katyusha-rocket attack earlier on Sunday, both Israeli and Lebanese authorities have confirmed. It is unclear if the mortar shells did or intended to hit live or infrastructure targets in the sparsely-populated territory. Antagonism between Israel and paramilitary groups in Lebanon is thought to have arisen as a result of the death of the prominent Hezbollah militant Samir Qantar in an Israeli air strike on Syria on  Saturday.

A bomb was detonated in a military bus in Mazzeh, a residential district in the Syrian capital Damascus, state news agency SANA has reported. An AFP correspondent present at the scene described pools of blood on the floor of the bus, whose passengers had been transported to hospital. Homemade bombs are frequently used by Islamic forces fighting the Syrian government.

There were no casualties as three rockets exploded in northern Israel on Sunday evening, with Lebanese media suggesting they were fired from Katyusha-type launchers. The attack from the Hezbollah stronghold came hours after the announcement of the death of militant Samir Kantar at the hands of the Israeli air force in Syria. No one has officially taken responsibility for the rocket launch.

Yemeni peace negotiations which were held in Switzerland have ended without any agreement and are to resume in January, according to government delegation source, as cited by Reuters. "The first round of Yemeni discussions ended with an agreement for them to be revived ... in Ethiopia on the 14th of January," the source said.