U.S. and French defense chiefs on Thursday discussed the possibility of France taking part in the American-led air war against Islamic State jihadists in Syria, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said.

Education Minister Elias Bou Saab expressed the cabinet's opposition to the establishment of camps for Syrian refugees, warning of the repercussions of such a development on Lebanon, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Friday.

He explained: “The cabinet supports resolving the case of refugees, but it is against setting up the camps.”

The United States Thursday welcomed a vote by Turkey's parliament giving a green light to take military action against the Islamic State militant group.

More than two dozen rights groups on Thursday called for the release of Syrian human rights lawyer Khalil Maatouq, two years after his "enforced disappearance" in Damascus.

The appeal was co-signed by 26 human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and several regional watchdogs.

Iran warned neighboring Turkey Thursday against doing anything that might aggravate tensions in the region, after the parliament in Ankara voted to authorize military intervention in Syria and Iraq.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke by telephone with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, and "criticized the method chosen to fight terrorism, expressing concern about any action that might aggravate the situation," state news agency IRNA reported.

Hundreds of people took to the streets of the Syrian city of Homs on Thursday, demanding its governor resign after a suicide bomber killed 47 schoolchildren, a monitoring group said.

The protesters vented their anger at Governor Talal al-Barazi over the deadly attack in a loyalist neighborhood of the government-controlled central city, not at the Damascus government, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Nearly all residents of the embattled Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane and surrounding area have fled an advance by Islamic State group jihadists, a monitor said Thursday.

"Some 80 to 90 percent of residents of Kobane and nearby villages have fled for fear of an imminent assault by the Islamic State group," said the director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman.

Turkey's top general on Thursday issued an unusual message of support for Turkish troops stationed at an exclave inside Syria at a "critical" period, saying the army would act if ever they needed help.

The small patch of land inside Syria around the tomb of Suleyman Shah -- the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman dynasty Osman I -- is considered Turkish territory under a 1920s treaty signed between the Turkish authorities and France, who at that time had a mandate on Syria.

The jailed leader of Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a 30-year insurgency for self-rule, warned on Thursday the peace process could collapse if Islamic State militants seize a key Syrian border town.

IS militants have in recent days advanced close to the Syrian Kurdish town of Ain al-Arab, known as Kobane to the Kurds, a few kilometers south of the Turkish border.

Islamic State fighters were at the gates of a key Kurdish town on the Syrian border with Turkey on Thursday as its parliament prepared to vote on authorizing military intervention against the jihadists.

Kurdish militiamen backed by U.S.-led air strikes were locked in fierce fighting to prevent the besieged border town of Kobane from falling to IS group fighters.