The Lebanese army opened anti-aircraft fire on Thursday at an unmanned plane in central Bekaa, the state-run National News Agency reported.

According to NNA, the Army's Second Artillery Brigade opened anti-aircraft fire at a drone that was flying over the Riyaq military airport.

Australia Thursday nominated the Syrian city of Raqqa as the first place to be hit with a travel ban under sweeping new counter-terrorism measures aimed at blocking jihadists going overseas to fight.

Canberra outlined plans to block citizens travelling to terror hotspots in October amid concern about the flow of foreign fighters joining militant groups in the Middle East such as Islamic State, with 70 citizens believed to have already made the journey.

Russian deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov is seeking to end the political deadlock in Lebanon and the rift between the Lebanese arch-foes during his visit to Beirut, Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin said on Thursday.

The Lebanese Army Command and a French delegation are seeking to reach common ground over the protocols regarding the implementation of a $3 billion arms deal under a Saudi grant.

An Nahar newspaper reported that consecutive meetings are being held to finalize the deal ahead of December 16, pointing out that the French delegation will send the agreement to Saudi and French authorities to kick off the arming process.

Syria on Tuesday blamed delays in the destruction of its remaining chemical weapons production facilities on technical problems, including the delivery of explosives, and denied it was being uncooperative.

Syria had said last month that work on the destruction of the 12 hangars and tunnels would begin in November, but the Syrian company chosen to conduct the operation pulled out.

Iranian strikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq show that Tehran has become an unavoidable regional player but also highlight the unusual nature of the global fight against an extremist group that is uniting traditional foes, experts say.

Both Washington and Tehran have been at pains to stress there has been no military coordination between them in the battle against IS in Iraq.

NATO allies Turkey and the United States are narrowing their differences over plans to create a no-fly zone along the Syrian border, the Turkish foreign minister said on Wednesday.

However, his comments contrast with statements from the White House which suggest the two countries remain divided on how to respond to the Syria conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday welcomed any Iranian military action against Islamic State jihadists in Iraq as "positive" after the Pentagon said Tehran had carried out air strikes against the group.

Kerry, hosting a meeting of an anti-IS coalition in Brussels, said international airstrikes were finally stopping the advance of the jihadists across Iraq and Syria, but warned it could take years to finally defeat them.

Lebanese judicial and military sources insisted Wednesday that a woman detained in Lebanon is a wife of Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as Iraq denied the allegations.

“DNA tests have confirmed that the Iraqi woman detained in Lebanon, Saja al-Dulaimi, is a wife of al-Baghdadi,” Turkey's Anatolia news agency quoted a Lebanese judicial source as saying.

The tide is beginning to turn on the Islamic State group, analysts say, with the jihadists losing ground in Iraq and only able to hold on to their positions in Syria.

Harassed by air strikes and facing better coordination among their opponents, IS fighters have suffered a string of defeats in Iraq and had to retreat from some areas they had conquered in June and the following months.