At least 2,000 people, mostly Islamic State group jihadists, have been killed in Syria by a U.S.-led air campaign in the past seven months, a monitoring group said Thursday.  

"At least 1,922 fighters from IS, mostly foreigners, have been killed since September 23, 2014 in raids and aerial attacks by the international coalition on IS positions and oil refineries" throughout Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Several hard-line Syrian rebel groups pushed a new offensive against government forces in northwestern Syria on Thursday, less than a month after seizing control of the provincial capital there.

The conservative Islamic factions, including the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front, are coordinating a multi-pronged campaign whose main target appears to be the town of Jisr al-Shughour in Idlib province. Opposition fighters are also attacking government checkpoints in a sprawling agricultural plain south of the town as well as nearby military facilities.

French police were hunting Thursday for possible accomplices to an Algerian whose plan to attack churches was foiled when his arsenal of weapons was uncovered purely by chance.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the planned attack on one or more churches in the town of Villejuif just south of Paris was the fifth to be thwarted since 2013.

An Islamic center in Australia linked with several men accused of terrorism-related offences shut down Thursday, citing harassment and "insidious campaigns" against it.

The Al-Furqan Islamic Center in Melbourne came under increased scrutiny after five men were arrested last weekend over an alleged plot to attack Anzac Day commemorations on April 25 -- when Australia honors its war dead.

At least 42 fighters were killed in 24 hours of fierce fighting between Islamist rebels and the Islamic State group in Syria's Damascus province, a monitoring group said Wednesday. 

"At least 30 Islamist rebels and 12 fighters from IS were killed in fighting since Tuesday" in the hilly region of Qalamun, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil remarked on Wednesday that the case of Syrian refugees is the greatest crisis modern Lebanon is facing.

He said during a conference on education held at Phoenicia Hotel: “There is a real plan to keep displaced Syrians in Lebanon, which we should confront, as they should not be turned into permanent refugees.”

Turkey's coastguard rescued 30 Syrians from a boat heading towards Greece after their vessel began to take on water in the Aegean Sea, state media said Tuesday.

The rescue operation came amid a surge in the numbers of migrants seeking to reach Europe, following the Mediterranean's worst migrant disaster in which as many as 800 people drowned off Libya.

Turkish police arrested a British family in the capital Ankara after being tipped off that they would try to cross the Syrian border to join Islamic State militants, a Turkish official said Tuesday.

"We received the intelligence from British police on April 19 that a British couple with four children may cross into Syria to join ISIS," the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity, using an alternative name for the terrorist group.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat ruled out a dispute between him and Hizbullah over Iran's expansion in the region and its rivalry with Saudi Arabia.

In remarks to An Nahar daily published on Tuesday, Jumblat said Hizbullah should reassess “Iran's absolute support for the Syrian regime, which will destroy Syria.”

Regime forces on Monday cut off a vital rebel supply route in southern Syria that opposition fighters used to transport weapons from Jordan, the army and a monitor said.

The armed forces took control of several villages in the southern province of Daraa in the morning, encircling two other villages where rebel fighters were located, an army statement said.