France and Tunisia will cooperate in attempts to prevent citizens joining thousands of their nationals fighting alongside jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria, Paris' interior minister said Monday.

Bernard Cazeneuve, on a visit to Tunis for talks with his counterpart Lofti Ben Jeddou, said the two discussed joint counter-terror measures against battle-hardened nationals "who could return to our countries and present a danger."

Syrian President Bashar Assad said Monday he was ready to study a U.N. plan to "freeze" fighting in the northern city of Aleppo, a statement from his office said.

"President Assad has been informed by (U.N. envoy Staffan) de Mistura of the main points of his initiative," said the statement issued after the two men held talks in Damascus.

Local ceasefires in Syria could prove the "best hope" for alleviating civilian suffering and provide a basis for a larger resolution to the country's conflict, a new report said Monday.

The report overseen by Madani, an NGO focused on civil society peace-building in Syria, examined 35 negotiations for local ceasefires in the past three years.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun said the extension of parliament’s mandate until June 2017 was aimed at preventing a change in the legislature's majority and revealed that dialogue with al-Mustaqbal movement on the presidential deadlock has stopped.

“The real reason behind the extension is to stop the current (parliamentary) majority from changing and consequently to control the presidential elections,” Aoun told As Safir newspaper in an interview published on Monday.

The U.N. peace envoy for Syria met officials in Damascus Sunday to push his efforts to set up "freeze zones" to suspend fighting in some areas, state news agency SANA reported.

Envoy Staffan De Mistura held "constructive" talks with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on the plans for "freeze zones" in areas including the battered northern city of Aleppo, SANA said.

While the Islamic State group is rapidly gaining support among jihadists worldwide, only marginal organizations and isolated individuals are formally expressing their allegiance, experts say.

Of the five main Al-Qaida offshoots -- in Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, the Sahel and Yemen -- none has recognized the authority of IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who at the end of June proclaimed the establishment of a caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria, with himself as "leader for Muslims everywhere."

More than 1,000 people, mostly jihadists, have been killed in Kobane since the Islamic State group launched an offensive on the Syrian town nearly two months ago, a monitor said Sunday.

IS jihadists, who proclaimed a "caliphate" in June straddling territory captured in Iraq and Syria, launched their offensive for the town -- also known as Ain al-Arab -- in mid-September.

A third Australian has died in the past two weeks while fighting with Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria, a report said Sunday.

The man, who was not named, was believed to be from south-west Sydney and married with children, according to the Sun Herald.

The popular Turkish resort of Antalya has barred unauthorized refugees from conflict-torn Syria in a bid to prevent a possible refugee wave, local media reported on Saturday. 

The city asked to be exempted from a government decree that grants all Syrian refugees a number of rights such as access to education and health care, as well as work permits. 

Friends and former colleagues of a U.S. aid worker whom the Islamic State group (IS) group has threatened to execute appealed Saturday for his release, during a news conference they held in the northern city of Tripoli.

Twenty-six-year-old Peter Kassig, who converted to Islam and took the Muslim name Abdel Rahman, has been an IS captive since 2013.