The Muslim Scholars Committee delegation succeeded on Wednesday in reaching an agreement with Islamist gunmen in the northeastern town of Arsal to extend a ceasefire in the area and release a number of officers detained in the region over the weekend.

It said during a press conference: “The ceasefire in Arsal will be extended for 24 hours and the gunmen have started to withdraw from the town.”

The Maronite bishops council condemned on Wednesday the ongoing clashes in the northeastern town of Arsal between the army and Islamist gunmen, voicing their support to the military in its mission.

It said: “We condemn the unrest and express our complete support to the army and security forces as should all political powers.”

Kurdish fighters from Iraq, Syria and Turkey joined forces in northern Iraq Wednesday in bid to reclaim areas lost to jihadists and rescue thousands of civilians stranded without food or water in nearby mountains.

The fate of the civilians, many of them from the Yazidi minority who fled to the Sinjar mountains after an attack by the Islamic State (IS) group at the weekend, has sparked international concern.

Syrian fighters have held 54 women and children hostage for an entire year, a rights group said Wednesday, urging they be freed and warning that holding civilians can amount to a war crime.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said the group was captured in the coastal province of Latakia during an opposition offensive a year ago.

At least 16 people, including two children, were killed when rebels shelled many districts of the Syrian capital overnight, a monitoring group said on Wednesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said another 79 people were wounded in the bombardment by an Islamist rebel brigade.

All 34 villages around Amerli are under jihadist control but the small Turkmen town is holding out, in one of the longest and most dramatic sieges of Iraq's current conflict.

Islamic State jihadists beheaded three fighters from a Sunni tribe that is battling the extremist group in eastern Syria, a monitor said on Tuesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the group had decapitated the men and put their heads on display in Jerthe a day after seizing the town in Deir Ezzor province.

A team of chemical weapons experts will travel to Syria next month to follow up on Damascus' pledge to hand over its arsenal, the British U.N. envoy said Tuesday.

A joint mission from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the United Nations is overseeing the destruction of the stockpile, but questions remain over whether the regime made a full disclosure.

An agreement was reached on Tuesday evening in the northeastern border region of Arsal after the Muslim Scholars Committee mediated to release all soldiers held captive by extremists militants, and to assure the withdrawal of foreign armed groups from the Bekaa area.

However, hours after the accord was sealed, armed groups violated the truce and attacked army posts in Arsal's Wadi al-Raayan and Wadi Ata regions.

The Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc condemned on Tuesday the clashes between the army and gunmen from the al-Nusra Front in the northeastern town of Arsal, saying that the attack against the army is tantamount to an assault against the whole of Lebanon.

It said in a statement after its weekly meeting: “We hold Hizbullah and those allied to it largely responsible for the developments in Arsal and what Lebanon and its army have to endure.”