A British court on Monday began a series of inquest hearings into the death of a British orthopedic surgeon in Syrian government custody in 2012.

The family of Abbas Khan claim that the 32-year-old father-of-two from London was murdered while detained.

Leader of the Progressive Socialist Party Walid Jumblat on Monday dismissed the U.S.-led coalition to counter “terrorism” in Syria and Iraq as a “lie.”

"The Arab situation began to deteriorate since the 2003 calculated conspiracy to invade Iraq,” Jumblat said in his weekly editorial in the PSP's al-Anbaa electronic newspaper.

Iran must withdraw its "occupying" forces from Syria to help resolve that country's conflict, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said Monday after talks with his German counterpart.

"Our reservations are about Iran's policy in the region, not about Iran as a country or people," Prince Saud said at a joint press conference in the Red Sea city of Jeddah with Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Heavy fighting broke out on Monday between Islamist jihadists and Kurdish fighters close to the Turkish border just north of the besieged Syrian town of Kobane, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

The clashes threatened to cut all access from Kobane to the Turkish border and block the passage which which has so far allowed some 200,000 refugees from the Kobane area to find refuge in Turkey.

Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri reiterated on Monday that he was trying hard to push for the election of a new president in Lebanon.

In an interview with the French daily Le Figaro, Hariri said: “Lebanon's coexistence … is menaced by the paralysis of institutions amid a presidential vacuum.”

The European Commission will give 3.9 million euros ($4.9 million dollars) in aid to humanitarian groups helping refugees from the besieged Syrian border town of Kobane, a statement said Sunday.

"Over 180,000 Syrians have been displaced to Turkey by the fierce fighting in Kobane. This further adds to the impact of what is the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times," said Kristalina Georgieva, Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response.

Islamic State jihadists met dogged Kurdish resistance in the high-profile Syrian battleground town of Kobane Sunday but they put Iraqi forces under heavy pressure, prompting the first U.S.-led relief drops.

A roadside bomb killed the police chief of the Iraqi province of Anbar, between Baghdad and the Syrian border, where Pentagon officials have voiced concern about the vulnerability of government troops to a renewed offensive by the jihadists.

A memorial service will be held Sunday for Alan Henning, the British hostage beheaded by Islamic State jihadists.

Friends and family, including his widow Barbara and teenage children Adam and Lucy, were to attend the ceremony at the Muslim Heritage Center in Manchester, northwest England.

Britain's security services are monitoring "thousands" of people in London, the city's mayor Boris Johnson said in an interview Saturday, amid heightened fears of attack by homegrown jihadists.

Johnson's comments came as Scotland Yard continued to question five men arrested in the capital on Tuesday on suspicion of planning a terrorist act.

A new U.N. Syria envoy is expected to arrive for talks in Russia on October 21, the foreign ministry in Moscow said on Saturday.

Staffan de Mistura "will meet with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov", deputy foreign minister Gennady Gatilov told the Interfax news agency.