Iran has begun talks with Turkey aimed at convincing it to prevent Islamic State group jihadists from taking the key Syrian border town of Kobane, an official said on Thursday.

"Iran will take any action to help the Kurdish (people) of Kobane in the framework of the support that it provides to the Syrian government to combat terrorism," Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Amir Abdollahian said, quoted by the official IRNA news agency.

At least 25 people, including four children, were killed Thursday in multiple Syrian government air strikes on a town outside Damascus, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deaths came in strikes on Irbin, just east of the capital, and that dozens more people had been wounded.

A “war of hostages” appears to have started between Hizbullah and Syrian rebels in the border region of Qalamun, with sources announcing that the Lebanese group has seized the bodies of dozens of militants and the Free Syrian Army publishing a video featuring a Hizbullah captive.

Syrian activists were on Thursday circulating the video, in which a Hizbullah fighter identified as Imad Ayyad urges his family to “meet the demands” of the FSA should they contact them.

A priest and 20 other Christians kidnapped by Al-Qaida-linked rebels in Syria this week were released Thursday, the Franciscan order said.

"Father Hanna Jallouf has been released this morning... He is under house arrest at the convent of Qunyeh," the order said, without providing further details.

Advancing Islamic State fighters seized control of a third of the Syrian border town of Kobane Thursday, as Turkey rejected sending in troops on its own against the jihadists.

Despite intensified U.S.-led air strikes, IS militants captured more ground in overnight fighting that killed dozens, as calls grew for ground action to support Kobane's beleaguered Kurdish defenders.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov next week in Paris with issues from Ukraine to Syria set to top the agenda.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil accused on Thursday Israel of “manipulating stability and using the takfiri attacks to change the balance of powers,” considering that the resistance's operation in the Shebaa Farms occurred on Lebanese soil.

“The ministerial statement states the liberation of the Shebaa Farms and the occupied Lebanese territories with all the possible means,” Bassil said in an interview with al-Akhbar newspaper.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, expressed grave concern over the activities of al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the mountainous areas surrounding the northeastern border town of Arsal.

The U.N. official warned of the tremendous impact of such acts on Lebanon's stability and security, in particular, Hizbullah's and other Lebanese groups involvement in the battles ongoing in the neighboring country Syria.

A Super Hornet fighter jet has carried out Australia's first bombing raid in Iraq, targeting what the defense ministry on Thursday described as a "facility" of the Islamist State group.

"Overnight the Australian Air Task Group operating in the Middle East attacked its first target in Iraq," the ministry said in a statement.

Hunger-striking prisoners who are force-fed at Guantanamo Bay can choose from several flavors, including strawberry, for the liquid meal they must ingest and well-behaved inmates sometimes are force-fed communally, a U.S. court heard Wednesday.