Several Christian youth who hail from the northern coastal city of Tripoli have reportedly converted to Islam and pledged allegiance to the al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front similar to Elie al-Warraq, who was detained by the military intelligence.

Al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Friday that al-Warraq, 22, who resides in Tripoli and hails from the northern district of Akkar, converted to extremist Islam and pledged allegiance to al-Nusra Front similar to other youth in the northern city.

Two Italian aid workers abducted in northern Syria last summer arrived Friday in Rome, where they were welcomed with "relief" a day after their release.

Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni welcomed Greta Ramelli, 20, and Vanessa Marzullo, 21, after their flight from Turkey landed at Ciampino military airport near Rome in the early hours of the morning.

Facing a shortage of drone pilots, the U.S. Air Force said Thursday it will increase pay for those who operate the robotic planes and draw on airmen from the reserves to fill the gap.

The growing demand for drones has stretched the American military's resources and placed a major strain on the aircraft's pilots, who work an average of about 14 hours a day, six days a week, Air Force Secretary Deborah James told a news conference.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has confirmed that his group has had Iranian Fateh-110 missiles that can hit the whole of Israel since 2006, noting that an Israeli spy recently busted in Hizbullah's ranks had “nothing to do with the entire military structure of the resistance.”

The Fateh-110 missiles have a minimum range of 200 kilometers that can hit entire Israel.

Syrian protesters in a rebel-held area of Aleppo on Thursday burned a poster expressing support for satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, accusing it of stoking Muslim anger, an AFP correspondent said.

Dozens of people marched in the battered district of Salaheddin, in the southwest of Syria's second city, against Charlie Hebdo's new cartoon, which depicts the Prophet Mohammed.

Two Italian women aid workers abducted in Syria last summer have been released, the Italian government said Thursday.

"Greta Ramelli and Vanessa Marzullo are free, they will return to Italy soon," the government said in a tweet from its official account.

Turkey has suspended five prosecutors working on a contentious investigation into an alleged delivery of arms for Syrian  rebels that was intercepted on the border last year, media reports said Thursday.

The top Turkish judicial committee said the decision was taken so as not to hamper the inquiry or tarnish the reputation of the judiciary, the official Anatolia news agency reported.

U.N. peace envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura on Thursday vowed to press on with efforts for a truce in Aleppo, adding that wanted a resolution of the devastating conflict this year.

De Mistura, a Swedish-Italian diplomat appointed as U.N. envoy on Syria in July, said the second city of Aleppo was a "symbolic microcosm of all of Syria".

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said up to 700 Turkish nationals have joined the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, sounding the alarm over the risk of attacks inside Turkey if the extremists return home.

"There are around 500-700 Turkish citizens who have joined the ranks of IS," Cavusoglu was quoted as saying by Turkish media. 

French Islamist gunman Amedy Coulibaly spent three days in Madrid before last week's Paris attacks, with Spanish police now investigating whether he had a support cell there, a newspaper said Thursday.

He was in Madrid between December 30 and January 2 with another person who has not yet been identified, Barcelona-based daily newspaper La Vanguardia reported.