U.S. warplanes struck more than two dozen times in Syria and Iraq on Friday and Saturday, hitting Islamic State jihadists and oil infrastructure they control, the American military said.

Of 15 air strikes in Syria, 12 were aimed at "degrading and destroying their oil producing, collecting, storage and transportation infrastructure," the U.S. Central Command said in a statement. 

Lebanon has all but closed its borders to refugees fleeing Syria's civil war, overwhelmed by an influx of over one million people displaced by fighting, U.N. and Lebanese officials said Saturday.

Quoted by al-Akhbar newspaper, Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said Lebanon "no longer officially receives any displaced Syrians."

Islamic State group jihadists have executed a man in northern Syria they accused of filming their headquarters and displayed his body on a cross, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

The man was put to death in the Aleppo province town of Al-Bab on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Kurdish forces in the Syrian town of Kobane repulsed a new attempt by Islamic State fighters to cut off the border with Turkey Saturday as troops battled the jihadists in neighboring Iraq.

It came as the U.S. military said it had unleashed 25 more air strikes in Syria and Iraq since Friday, hitting Islamic State (IS) jihadists and oil infrastructure they control.

Turkey is turning a deaf ear to insistent pressure to take a more pro-active stance in the fight against Islamic State (IS) jihadists, adding to existing strains with the West under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Western diplomats have repeatedly made clear they want to see the key NATO member play a key role in the coalition against the militants, who are battling for the Syrian town Kobane just a few kilometers from Turkey.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Friday called for a "humanitarian" safe zone to be created in an extensive section of northern Syria to host refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict.

Turkey has called for the area, backed up by a no-fly zone, to protect its borders and provide some protection for refugees fleeing both the Syrian conflict and Islamic State militants who have seized swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Kataeb Party leader Amin Gemayel on Friday called for urgent measures to control the presence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and count their numbers, suggesting the recruitment of new municipal police members who would contribute to protecting towns and villages.

“We are largely counting on the role of local authorities and municipalities amid the current circumstances in the country and in the face of all the threats that Lebanon is facing,” said Gemayel at a Kataeb-organized seminar on the role of municipalities.

It's hardly the moment to plan a victory parade -- but the mood has changed.

Sensing the resistance of their fellow Kurds fighting jihadists for Kobane, the refugees who fled the besieged Syrian town for Turkey are now allowing themselves to hope.

Islamic State group jihadists are being trained by Saddam Hussein's former pilots to fly three fighter jets captured from the Syrian military, a monitoring group said Friday.

But a spokesman for the American central command said the U.S. military was "unaware" of flight operations by IS militants.

At least 15 civilians, including three minors, were killed in Syrian regime air raids on a rebel-held town near the capital on Friday, a monitoring group said.

"At least 15 civilians, including three aged under 18, were killed in eight raids by Syrian military planes on several districts of the town of Douma," 13 kilometers (eight miles) northeast of Damascus, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.