Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi held talks in Turkey earlier this week with head of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces Khaled Khoja on the case of the Lebanese servicemen held hostage since August by jihadists, reported the daily An Nahar on Friday.

The minister told the daily that he is seeking the support of the Syrian opposition to release the Lebanese captives.

The Islamic State group beheaded overnight two opposition fighters accused of fighting the extremist group in a southern Damascus suburb, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said Tuesday.

"IS executed two men in south Damascus by beheading" after they were accused of being traitors, the Britain-based Observatory said.

The Maronite bishops synod called Saturday on the Arab and Islamic countries to aid Lebanon and help it resolve its crises that were caused by the war raging in the Middle East.

“The Arab and Islamic countries should assume their historic responsibilities to combat extremism and fanaticism and preserve the Christians' existence in the region,” the synod said in its final statement that was read by Maronite Bishop of Batroun Mounir Khairallah.

The army announced on Saturday that it had arrested in February a Syrian national who confessed to belonging to armed terrorist groups.

Hassan Mohammed Jamil Harba, who was detained on February 27, admitted to heading an armed group that was active in the outskirts of Flita and Arsal in the eastern Bekaa area.

Iran was to hold a memorial service on Tuesday for seven Afghans killed fighting alongside the forces of its close ally Syrian President Bashar Assad, Iranian media reported.

Among the dead was the commander of Afghan volunteer unit the Fatemiyoun Brigade, the government daily Iran reported.

Al-Qaida's Syria affiliate on Saturday drove U.S.-backed rebels out of a strategic northern military base in fierce fighting that left dozens dead, a monitor said.

At least 29 fighters from the Western-armed Hazm movement were killed along with six Al-Nusra Front jihadists, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Islamic State group has seized at least 90 Assyrian Christians in Syria, in the jihadists' first mass kidnapping of Christians in the war-torn country, a monitor said Tuesday.

The abductions appeared to be in retaliation for a major Kurdish offensive aimed at recapturing nearby villages, and which has killed 132 jihadists in four days, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A rebel counter-attack and stormy weather are preventing Syrian government forces from pressing their offensive in the northern province of Aleppo on Thursday, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the assault was stalling on its third day and that the clashes have killed 170 people, including 90 government troops and allied fighters.

Bosnian police on Wednesday arrested six people on suspicion of planning to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group or organizing the trips, prosecutors said.

Bosnia's prosecutor said in a statement the six were members of "radical religious movements" and that some were on their way to Syria where they intended to join the forces of Islamic State group".

Syrian opposition figures and representatives of the regime of President Bashar Assad began talks in Moscow Wednesday but there was little hope that they would make a breakthrough in ending the country's brutal war.

The talks between opposition groups tolerated by Damascus and a Syrian delegation led by ambassador to the United Nations Bashar Jaafari came as Kurdish forces battled the Islamic State group around Kobane, after expelling them from the strategic town on the Turkish border.