President Vladimir Putin on Monday unexpectedly announced Russia was shelving the multi-billion dollar South Stream pipeline project to deliver Russian gas to the Europe, blaming the EU for throwing obstacles in its path.

Putin revealed on a visit to Ankara that Russia was drawing the curtain on what for half-a-decade has been one of the Kremlin's flagship projects, saying Turkey in the future could play an important role as a gas hub.

A U.S. Air Force fighter pilot was killed Monday in a non-combat-related crash in the Middle East, the military said in a statement.

The F-16 jet crashed as it was returning to its base at an unspecified location in the region shortly after take-off.

Amsterdam was due Monday to send hundreds of unwanted bicycles to help Syrian refugees get around the sprawling Zaatari camp in Jordan.

"Some 300 abandoned bicycles are set to leave Amsterdam today," said Ton Buffing, in charge of the project for Amsterdam city council.

A Dutch court sentenced a jihadist to three years in prison on Monday for fighting in Syria, reportedly the first penalty of its kind in the Netherlands.

The Hague district court convicted the 20-year-old man, identified only as "Maher H." under Dutch privacy laws, for having fought in the Syrian conflict.

At least 16 Iraqi border guards were killed Monday in a dawn assault by the Islamic State jihadist group on their post near the Syrian frontier, provincial and security officials said.

"Sixteen border guards, including a captain, were killed and four wounded in an attack targeting their headquarters in Al-Walid, near the Syrian border," Faleh al-Issawi, deputy head of Anbar provincial council, told AFP.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat criticized on Monday proposals to resume coordination between the Lebanese and Syrian armies.

He said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa website: “What would such a suggestion achieve? Why should Lebanon help bolster the Syrian regime and its army after their credibility had reached their lowest points?”

Islamic State group jihadists battling for control of the Syrian town of Kobane suffered some of their heaviest losses yet in 24 hours of clashes and U.S.-led air strikes, monitors said Sunday.

At least 50 jihadists were killed in the embattled border town in suicide bombings, clashes with Kobane's Kurdish defenders and air strikes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party on Sunday pressed Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu over whether a probe had been launched into claims that an attack by jihadists on a border post had been launched from Turkish soil.

The Turkish army on Saturday confirmed Islamic State (IS) jihadists had staged an attack at the Mursitpinar border post close to the Syrian town of Kobane but strenuously denied that the car involved in the strike had come from its territory.

A wave of U.S.-led air strikes have struck at least 30 targets around the Syrian city of Raqa, the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State group, a monitor said Sunday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes took place before midnight Saturday and hit 30 targets on the northern outskirts of Raqa.

Pope Francis and Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I on Sunday made a joint pledge to support Christians in the Middle East, saying they could not let Christianity be driven out of the region.

"We cannot resign ourselves to a Middle East without Christians, who have professed the name of Jesus there for two thousand years," the two Church leaders said in a joint declaration.