U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon David Hale announced on Thursday that his country will deliver an urgent aid to the Lebanese army within the upcoming few weeks which will continue in the months to follow.

“This assistance will enhance the LAF’s ability to secure Lebanon’s borders, protect Lebanon’s people, and fight these violent extremist groups,” Hale said after talks with Prime Minister Tammam Salam and Defense Minister Samir Moqbel at the Grand Serail.

Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is expected to make a televised speech on Friday to commemorate the end of July 2006 war with Israel.

Nasrallah will reportedly address the party's supporters at 8:30 on Friday.

Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji expressed concern that some of the soldiers taken captive by Islamist gunmen in the northeastern town of Arsal might have been killed, pointing out that the outskirts of the region is still “hijacked.”

“The number of missing soldiers is around 20... A videotape issued by the armed men showed the body of a soldier,” Qahwaji said in comments published in al-Mustaqbal newspaper on Thursday.

The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday called on new Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi to quickly form a government capable of beating back a jihadist offensive.

Jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) group seized a string of villages in northern Syria on Wednesday in fighting that left 52 people dead, a monitoring group said.

The jihadists captured eight villages between second city Aleppo and the Turkish border, buoyed by their successes in neighboring Iraq, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

All Syria's precursor chemicals that could be used to make deadly sarin gas have been destroyed on board a U.S. Navy ship on the Mediterranean Sea, the world's chemical watchdog said on Wednesday.

"All 581 metric tonnes of a precursor chemical for sarin gas that were removed from Syria and trans-loaded onto the U.S. vessel Cape Ray, have been destroyed with neutralization technology on board the ship," the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said, confirming an Pentagon report on Tuesday.

The March 14 General Secretariat called on Wednesday for a campaign to demand the Lebanese cabinet to address the possibility of controlling the country's border with Syria.

“We recommend the launching of a political-diplomatic-media campaign to press the government to discuss the possibility of deploying the Lebanese army and the international peacekeepers in accordance with (U.N. Security Council) resolution 1701,” the general secretariat said after its weekly meeting.

The Muslim Scholars Committee handed the premiership a videotape showing seven of the hostages taken by jihadists who overran the northeastern border town of Arsal earlier this month.

Sheikh Husam al-Ghali told several local stations about the move. It was not clear if the militants were making demands to release the captives – around 35 soldiers and policemen.

Fearing a genocide of Christians, the Vatican has given its approval to U.S. military air strikes in Iraq -- a rare exception to its policy of peaceful conflict resolution.

The head of a Tripoli-based association was killed in Syrian troop shelling on al-Qalamun region in the neighboring country, media reports said on Tuesday.

"Head of al-Basha'er association Abou Mohammed al-Rifai and others were killed” in the latest battles in Syria, LBCI television said.