Syrian Kurds fighting the Islamic State group in the flashpoint town of Kobane made new gains Tuesday, expelling the jihadists from several central buildings and seizing weapons, a monitor said.

The advance came hours after the U.S.-led coalition launched four strikes against IS positions in central Kobane, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday warned that "extreme horror" films used by terrorist groups could harm young people, after fresh footage emerged of Western hostages held by North African jihadists.

"Why this video?", said Hollande of the recording from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb showing a French and a Dutch tourist they have been holding hostage for several years.

The Lebanese authorities officially informed the Qatari-appointed mediator, Syrian Ahmed al-Khatib, that it had agreed on the jihadists' demand to exchange each captive with five Islamist inmates and 50 female prisoners.

According to al-Mustaqbal newspaper published on Tuesday, the decision came in light of last week's crisis cell meeting.

Lebanon came in 14th place as a country most affected by terrorism in a list of 162 nations, according to a new global study.

The London-based Institute for Economics and Peace said Lebanon got a score of 6.4 and joined 8 other countries that saw increased terrorist attacks in 2013 when compared to 2012.

The army intelligence has detained a prominent Syrian figure in the northern Metn area of Bourj Hammoud after the arrest of four terrorist kingpins in the Bekaa town of Chtaura, As Safir newspaper claimed in a report published on Tuesday.

According to the daily, the Syrian is playing an important role in transferring money to the terrorists located in Lebanon, on the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal and in the Syrian Qalamoun.

A U.N. report is recommending the seizure of all oil tanker trucks leaving Islamist-controlled territory in Iraq and Syria to cut off millions of dollars from crude sales now bankrolling the jihadists.

The U.N.'s al-Qaida Monitoring Team is also proposing an embargo on flights taking off or landing in territory seized by the Islamic State (IS) group and its allies to prevent them from moving assets and possibly weapons.

With soldiers firing warning shots to herald the nightly curfew and jihadist militants beheading informants, Sinai's residents find themselves caught in the middle of Egypt's "war on terror".

The Sinai Peninsula has become a hotbed of Islamist militancy after decades of neglect under former president Hosni Mubarak, and amid a security vacuum triggered by the army's ouster last year of his successor Mohamed Morsi.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry launched a withering critique of the Islamic State Monday, blasting extremist brutality and insisting the world will not be intimidated in the battle against "barbarism."

Kerry's anti-IS broadside followed the jihadist group's claim that it had beheaded U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig and 18 Syrian military personnel in a video that triggered worldwide revulsion.

French prosecutors said Monday they were investigating two Frenchmen suspected of taking part in the beheading of Syrian prisoners shown in an Islamic State video.

The prosecutor's office confirmed the first was 22-year-old Maxime Hauchard from Normandy in northern France.

Syrians forced by nearly four years of war to flee their homes are in desperate need of more aid as winter approaches, a humanitarian group warned on Monday.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said the enormous numbers of Syrians displaced by the war faced plummeting temperatures and heavy rains.