At least 500 migrants are believed to be on board a freighter adrift south of the island of Crete, the Greek coastguard said on Tuesday.

"We estimate that there are between 500 and 700 people on board," a coastguard spokeswoman told Agence France Presse.

The army intelligence apprehended on Tuesday a suspect linked to Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir and four others as a judge ordered the release of a detainee linked to the controversial radical preacher.

The state-run National News Agency reported that deputy Military Prosecutor Judge Dani al-Zani ordered the release of Salah Ghassan al-Aqqad, who is linked to al-Asir, from Jezzine prison.

The front line that slices through Aleppo separates the ancient Syrian city's residents into two distinct worlds, the only thing uniting them the fear of stepping into a sniper's sights.

This feeling is eerily similar on each side of the line, scanned by gunmen perched in once residential buildings.

Russian deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov is scheduled to pay a visit to Lebanon in December, announced the National News Agency on Monday.

It said that the Russian official will travel to Lebanon on December 5 where he will hold talks with various officials.

Kurdish fighters gained ground from jihadists of the Islamic State group in fierce battles in the Syrian town of Kobane overnight, a monitoring group said on Monday.

The town on the border with Turkey has become a highly symbolic battleground in the war against IS with the U.S.-led coalition launching near daily air strikes in support of its Kurdish defenders.

Negotiations over the release of Lebanese soldiers and policemen abducted by jihadists, who briefly overran the northeastern border town of Arsal in August, reached a breakthrough, al-Liwaa newspaper reported on Monday.

According to the daily, the mediation carried out by the Qatari-appointed negotiator, Syrian Ahmed al-Khatib, succeeded in easing several complications.

Police and Israel's Shin Bet security agency have arrested an Arab Israeli suspected of undergoing military training with the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria, the agency said.

It said that Hamza Magasmah, from the Galilee village of Yafia, was arrested on October 24 on his return to Israel.

Some 60 Germans have been killed while fighting under the banner of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, the head of the German domestic intelligence service said Sunday.

"About 60 people from Germany have died or killed themselves, at least nine in suicide attacks," Hans-George Maassen told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

Syria's President Bashar Assad told a Russian delegation Sunday that "serious efforts" were needed to defeat "terrorists" and exert "real pressure" on their alleged backers, state media said.

Assad's statement comes days ahead of scheduled Moscow talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and a Syrian delegation on the possible relaunch of peace talks with the opposition.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday wrapped up a key visit to Turkey without a breakthrough on military cooperation in the Syrian crisis but with officials confident the talks brought their positions closer.

During his three-day trip to Istanbul, Biden held several hours of talks with both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on the crises created by the capture by Islamic State (IS) jihadists of swathes of Iraq and Syria.