There are rising fears that the northern city of Tripoli will become a hub for Islamic State and al-Nusra Front fighters, who have engaged in gunbattles with the Lebanese army in a border town and beheaded two soldiers.

As Safir daily on Thursday quoted security officials as saying that extremists have been spending huge amounts of money to lure young men and encourage them to be armed.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif hit out against the Islamic State group Wednesday as a "dangerous phenomenon," but warned it could not be defeated by air strikes.

Accusing other nations of having created "a Frankenstein that has come to haunt its creators," Zarif said at a Washington think-tank that the Islamic militants cannot be "eradicated through aerial bombardments," nor can they be contained.

Australia's largest ever counter-terrorism raids on Thursday detained 15 people and foiled a plot by Islamic State jihadists to conduct "demonstration killings", reportedly including beheading a member of the public on camera.

U.S. lawmakers voted Wednesday to authorize training and arming of Syrian rebels to combat Islamist radicals, a crucial step in President Barack Obama's bid to thwart extremism surging across Iraq and Syria.

Despite misgivings by war-weary Democrats that the move could open the door to full-blown American military intervention in the Middle East, and concern by conservatives that the plan falls short of what is needed to defeat the Islamic State (IS) group, the House of Representatives voted 273 to 156 to approve Obama's train-and-equip plan. 

A Syrian-born refugee is to become the next leader of Norway's Workers' Youth League, in an ironic twist for Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right nationalist who shot dead scores of the movement's members in 2011.

The electoral committee of the leading Labor Party's youth wing nominated Mani Hussaini, 26, on Wednesday to replace Eskil Pedersen, who is not standing for re-election.

Saudi Arabia's top religious body on Wednesday warned Muslims against joining militant groups, saying their "deviant doctrine" has no place in Islam.

The Council of Senior Ulema, a group of top Muslim scholars, said it was prohibited under Islamic sharia law to join the fighting.

Syria's opposition said Wednesday it had launched an investigation into the deaths of 15 children inoculated against measles in the northwestern province of Idlib.

The vaccination program was carried out in areas under rebel control near the Turkish border but halted on Tuesday after reports of the deaths. 

Israel's Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz on Wednesday urged the European Union not to make a "bad deal" with Iran over its nuclear program, ahead of crucial talks.

One of Kosovo's leading Muslim clerics was among 15 people arrested by police on Wednesday for recruiting people to join the jihad in Iraq and Syria, local media reported. 

Syrian air strikes on a besieged rebel town in the heart of the country have killed nearly 50 people in recent days, a monitoring group said on Wednesday.

A rebel commander, seven women and a child were among 25 people killed in air strikes on Talbisseh in Homs province on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.