Syria's opposition "embassy" in Qatar began Thursday to renew expired passports for some of the estimated 60,000 Syrians living in the tiny Gulf country, its chief said.

Nizar Haraki, the opposition envoy, said this would help thousands of Syrians who fled the country to escape the conflict, which has killed at least 200,000 people since it erupted in 2011.

European Union interior ministers met Thursday in Riga to finalize a counter-terrorism strategy targeting radical Islamists weeks after the Paris terror attacks that left 17 people dead.

The ministers recommend more stringent controls on EU citizens leaving and entering the Schengen free travel zone, an air passenger registry to check the movement of suspected Islamist militants and fresh cyber-security measures aimed at intercepting suspect traffic.

Chairman of Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Alaeddin Boroujerdi arrived in Lebanon on Thursday a day after Hizbullah launched an attack against an Israeli convoy in the occupied Shebaa Farms that left two Israeli troops dead.

He expressed upon his arrival in Beirut his congratulations to Hizbullah on its operation, which was in retaliation to an Israeli airstrike on January 18 on Syria's Quneitra region that left six party members and an Iranian general dead.

Two managers of a Jordanian website have been arrested for spreading rumors that an Iraqi jihadist had been freed in exchange for a Japanese hostage, a judicial source said Thursday.

The owner of the Saraya News site, Hashim al-Khalidi, and editor-in-chief Seif Obeidat could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

The General Directorate of State Security detained in the eastern city of Zahle on Thursday an abduction gang that is specialized in smuggling Syrians into Lebanon.

The gang reportedly smuggles Syrians into Lebanese territories and kidnaps people in exchange for ransom.

Governments increasingly view human rights as "a luxury" they can ill afford, Human Rights Watch said Thursday, warning that abuses fuel crises in world trouble spots like Syria and Ukraine.

Western powers, including the United States, are far from blameless and in some cases their wrongdoing has fed the very climate in which serial rights abusers like Islamic State jihadists thrive.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat stressed on Thursday that Lebanon couldn't endure the repercussions of a new war, expressing belief that Israel can't afford to engage in any battle at this stage.

“Hizbullah acted in a smart manner by retaliating to the Israeli airstrike in Quneitra from Syria and not Lebanon,” Jumblat said in comments published in al-Mustaqbal newspaper.

President Barack Obama plans to ask for an increase in military spending in a proposed budget for 2016, with a request for $585 billion that would exceed funding caps mandated by Congress, officials said Wednesday.

The budget proposal for the Pentagon would provide for a hike in spending on weapons, research and maintenance, which had been scaled back under automatic budget cuts in recent years, officials told AFP.

Jordan demanded proof Thursday that a pilot threatened with execution by the Islamic State group was alive, as a deadline set by the jihadists to free a female militant expired.

IS had vowed to kill airman Maaz al-Kassasbeh unless Iraqi jihadist Sajida al-Rishawi was handed over at the Turkish border in return for captured Japanese journalist Kenji Goto.

The fight against Islamic State jihadists is taking place online as well on the battlefield, with 18,000 Twitter accounts linked to the group suspended in recent months, according to a U.S. expert.

IS supporters "are under significant pressure, with the most active and viral users taking the brunt of the suspensions" J. M. Berger, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who tracks militants on social media, told lawmakers on Tuesday.