First Military Investigation Judge Riyad Abou Ghida issued on Tuesday an indictment against two Islamist militants and their terror group.

Abou Ghida formally charged Mahmoud Ahmed Abou Abbas and Sirajeddine Zureiqat, a so-called spokesman of the Qaida-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades, with Dahr al-Baydar and Beirut's Tayyouneh bombings in June 2014.

French police on Tuesday arrested eight people suspected of involvement in an alleged network that sent people to Syria to wage jihad, the interior minister said.

Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters the suspects were arrested in the area around Paris and the southeastern city of Lyon.

Hizbullah's ambitions are spreading far beyond its Lebanon home as the Shiite movement appears increasingly bent on taking on Sunni foes across the Middle East. It has sent thousands of its fighters into Syria and senior military advisers to Iraq, helped Shiite rebels rise to power in Yemen and threatened Bahrain over its abuse of the Shiite majority.

But the regional aspirations also are taking a heavy toll and threatening to undermine Hizbullah's support at home. The group has suffered significant casualties, there is talk of becoming overstretched, and judging by the events of recent days, even a vague sense that the appetite for fighting the Israelis is waning.

Abou Malek al-Shami, the emir of the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front in al-Qalamoun, considered on Tuesday that the blast which targeted a bus carrying Lebanese Shiite pilgrims in Damascus a “clear message for those who are assaulting Sunnis.”

“Hizbullah played a substantial role in supporting the vicious Nusairi regime and shed the blood of Sunnis in Damascus... our response had to be brutal,” al-Shami said in a post via his Facebook page.

The fifth round of dialogue between Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal officials will be preceded by an “important” meeting for al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc after the controversy that erupted following Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's speech, An Nahar daily reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper said that the “importance” of the bloc's meeting on Tuesday lies in setting a stance from the “latest developments.”

Syrian government air strikes on opposition-held towns across the country killed at least 44 people on Monday and wounded more than 100, a monitoring group said.

In Jassem in the southern province of Daraa, 16 civilians were killed in four air strikes, while 25 were wounded, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Jordan on Monday sentenced two Syrians to three years in jail each after they were charged with plotting to kidnap a U.S. aid worker for ransom last year.

The state security court, a military tribunal, accused them of "terrorist activity" and sentenced them to three years' hard labor, said an AFP reporter in court.

Swedish prosecutors indicted Monday a former Syrian rebel accused of severely beating a pro-regime fighter in 2012 after a video of the attack was posted on Facebook.

The 28-year-old is accused of violating international law -- including the Geneva Conventions which govern the treatment of prisoners of war -- and of aggravated assault, in what is believed to be the first case in Sweden linked to the conflict in Syria.

Indian authorities have released nine people who had been deported from Turkey after allegedly trying to enter an area of Syria controlled by the Islamic State militant group, police said Monday.

Police in the southern city of Bangalore said the nine Indians were released late Sunday, after they admitted during questioning that they had planned to cross over to territory controlled by IS but denied being members of the organization, which is banned in India.

Hackers targeted Syrian opposition members with online "honey traps," posing as female supporters to steal battle plans and the identity of defectors, a security firm said in a report Monday.

The report, by U.S. cyber-security firm FireEye, tracked hacking operations in late 2013 and early 2014 that targeted Syrian opposition fighters, media activists and humanitarian aid workers.