Syria's President Bashar Assad has paid tribute to his army and a group of soldiers who escaped an almost month-long rebel siege, in comments which follow a series of regime losses.

Assad, quoted by state news agency SANA late Friday, saluted the "heroism" of some 150 soldiers and their families who were able to escape a hospital building in the town of Jisr al-Shughur in northwestern Syria.

Hizbullah backed by the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad allegedly captured Saturday a new position in al-Qalamoun battle.

Fighters reportedly seized Sadr al-Bustan hilltop, inflicting casualties among the ranks of jihadists, Hizbullah's mouthpiece al-Manar said.

Arsal municipal chief Ali al-Hujairi expressed concern Saturday over attempts by Hizbullah and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to drag the northeastern border town into battle.

“They are trying to pull Arsal into a dark tunnel of blood and fire,” Hujairi said in comments published in the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa newspaper.

The U.N. Security Council on Friday expressed deep concern for thousands of civilians trapped in the Syrian city of Palmyra after it was captured by Islamic State fighters.

The 15-member council called for safe passage for fleeing civilians and stated their "grave concern" for the protection of the ancient city, a World Heritage site.

President Barack Obama's war strategy failed to stop Islamic State jihadists from overrunning Ramadi but he appears reluctant to change course despite the group's advances on the battlefield.

The disastrous fall of the Iraqi city exposed the limits of Obama's policy, experts say, highlighting the sectarian divisions in Iraqi society exploited by the IS group and the American president's determination to avoid another protracted military occupation. 

A London taxi driver who made bombs targeting coalition troops in Iraq, one of which killed a U.S. soldier, was on Friday jailed for life with a minimum of 38 years after being convicted of murder.

Anis Sardar, 38, built an improvised explosive device (IED) which killed Sergeant First Class Randy Johnson of 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment when it exploded under his armoured vehicle outside Baghdad on September 27, 2007.

Turkish authorities have detained and then deported a French national who arrived in the country seeking to join jihadists in Syria, an official said Friday.

The man, identified only as B.T., had landed Thursday night at Sabiha Gokcen airport in Istanbul on a flight from Milan, the Turkish official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

Since extremists from the Islamic State group (IS) seized Syria's al-Tanaf crossing with Iraq, the Syrian regime has effectively lost control of all of its borders except those with Lebanon.

Of Syria's 19 border posts with Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey, government forces now control just seven -- five with Lebanon, and two more, both closed, with Turkey.

A priest of the Syriac Catholic Church in the western Syrian city of Homs was kidnapped Thursday along with one of his colleagues, the NGO l'Oeuvre d'Orient told AFP Friday.

Father Jacques Mourad was seized with another Christian originating from Aleppo, who was helping the priest.

The Islamic State group consolidated its control of the Iraq-Syria border Friday after capturing an Iraqi provincial capital and a famed Syrian heritage site in an offensive that has forced a review of U.S. strategy.

The jihadists, who now control roughly half of Syria, reinforced their self-declared transfrontier "caliphate" by seizing Syria's al-Tanaf crossing on the Damascus-Baghdad highway late Thursday.