Clashes erupted Tuesday evening between the Syrian army, backed by Hizbullah, and Syrian gunmen opposite the outskirts of the Bekaa border town of Nahle.

Sky News Arabia reported that the clashes were taking place in Nahle's peripheries as OTV confirmed that “Hizbullah fighters are involved in the clashes.”

Large numbers of foreign fighters are among the jihadists killed in the battle for the Syrian town of Kobane, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday, saying the concerted campaign was halting the militants' march.

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) announced the "liberation" of Kobane on Monday, depriving the Islamic State group (IS) of a strategic prize to add to its territory in Syria and Iraq.

Kurdish fighters battled the Islamic State group in villages around Kobane on Tuesday, a day after expelling the jihadists from the strategic Syrian town on the Turkish border.

The news prompted celebrations among residents who fled across the frontier into Turkey, with thousands gathering at the border and hoping to return, more than four months after the fighting began.

The Christian patriarchs of the Orient on Tuesday urged the international community and humanitarian organizations to offer aid to the refugees in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, as they called for ending all support to terrorist organizations.

“The fathers expressed grief over the martyrdom of eight more Lebanese Army soldiers as they were performing the duty of defending the border in the face of the terrorist groups,” said a statement issued after a meeting in Bkirki for the Council of Patriarchs of the Orient.

At least two rockets fired from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday prompting Israeli forces to return fire, the army said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties on the Israeli side.

The Islamic State group's demand that a jihadi on Jordan's death row be exchanged for a Japanese hostage is an attempt to chip away at the U.S.-led coalition against extremism in the Middle East, analysts say.

The militants, whose brutal rule stretches across swathes of Iraq and Syria, is hoping to sow dissent among Jordan, Japan and the United States by offering to spare the life of journalist Kenji Goto.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said his country opposes the idea of a Kurdish-controlled autonomous government in northern Syria, local media reported on Tuesday.

"We do not want a new Iraq. What's this? Northern Iraq," Erdogan told the Hurriyet newspaper aboard a plane en route from an African tour at the weekend. He was referring to the Kurdish-controlled part of Iraq known as Iraqi Kurdistan.

At least five people were arrested during an anti-jihadist operation in southern France that was still ongoing early Tuesday, a security source said.

The operation took place in the small town of Lunel east of Montpellier in southern France, from where around 20 young people have left for Syria. Six of them, aged 18 to 30, have been killed since October.

The Lebanese army targeted militant posts and movements on the outskirts of Ras Baalbek in the eastern Bekaa, media reports said on Tuesday.

The army heavily shelled the outskirts of the area where gunmen are entrenched.

Labor Minister Sejaan Qazzi has called on the international coalition fighting the Islamic State terrorist group to defend Lebanon if it was invaded by terrorists.

Qazzi told An Nahar daily published on Tuesday that the Lebanese authorities should officially ask the coalition to make a pledge on protecting Lebanon against terrorist organizations.