Malaysian police have detained three Muslim men suspected of wanting to go to Syria to join the militant Islamic State group, a senior police official said Friday.

The three were detained Thursday at the Kuala Lumpur international airport while waiting for a flight to Turkey, said Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, who heads the national police counter-terrorism unit.

Two members of the Internal Security Forces Narcotics Control Bureau were released at dawn Friday hours after they were kidnapped in the northern city of Tripoli, the state-run National News Agency reported.

NNA said unknown assailants took the policemen, who were in civilian clothes, as hostages on Thursday night in the Tripoli district of Bab al-Tabbaneh.

A U.S.-led alliance launched new air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria Friday, targeting oil facilities for a second day, as Britain weighed joining the campaign in Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported fresh strikes in the oil-rich eastern province of Deir Ezzor, and northeastern Hasakeh, both of which were also targeted a day earlier.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Friday he was deeply worried about the potential for lone wolf terror attacks, days after an 18-year-old suspected militant was shot dead while attacking police.

Abdul Numan Haider was killed on Tuesday after he stabbed two police officers outside a Melbourne police station, seriously injuring one he knifed in the head, neck and stomach.

Lebanon has been in a “defensive war” with jihadists because the country is unable to carry out attacks against them, Prime Minister Tammam Salam has said.

“Lebanon is part of the efforts exerted by the international (community) to fight terrorism,” Salam told An Nahar daily's reporter in New York, where he is attending the U.N. General Assembly session.

Hundreds of mostly Syrian refugees rescued by a cruise liner in the Mediterranean agreed to disembark in Cyprus on Friday after a standoff triggered by their demand to go to Italy.

A total of 345 migrants were plucked by the Salamis Filoxenia from a trawler in rough seas off the coast of Cyprus on Thursday.

President Barack Obama spoke briefly with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday about the war against the Islamic State group and the U.S.-led coalition which the Turks have yet to join.

Officials said Obama called Erdogan from Air Force One as he returned from the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where the Turkish leader met with Vice President Joe Biden.

U.S. authorities said Thursday they had no knowledge of a plot by Islamic State radicals to attack subway systems in the United States and Paris, following reported comments by Iraq's leader about such a threat. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi was earlier quoted as saying at the United Nations that the alleged plot had been revealed following a series of arrests in Iraq.

Foreigners make up the vast majority of the more than 140 jihadists killed by U.S.-led air strikes on the Islamic State group in Syria, a monitoring group said Thursday.

Jihadist fighters from Europe, Arab nations, Chechnya and Turkey dominated total the number of people killed, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Islamic State jihadists have seized and set fire to a cement factory in Syria owned by French construction materials giant Lafarge, causing damage to the facility, a monitor said Thursday.

"While advancing on the Kurdish town of Ain al-Arab (Kobane in Kurdish) near the Turkish border, they seized the Lafarge factory and burnt down part of it," said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.