Spanish police said Monday they had detained a 14-year-old girl and a 19-year-old woman suspected of trying to join Islamic extremists fighting in Iraq and Syria.

Security forces stopped the teenagers on Saturday as they tried to enter Morocco allegedly to join Islamic State, whose fighters have seized swathes of Iraq and Syria, the government said.

The jihadist Islamic State group executed seven members of a single family from the Ismaili minority in the central Syrian province of Hama overnight, state media and a monitor said Monday.

"An armed terrorist group committed a massacre in the Mzeiraa area near the town of Salmiya, killing seven people, including two aged 13 and 15 years old," Syrian state news agency SANA said.

Fierce fighting raged for the third day in the mountains around the northeastern border town of Arsal on Monday as the army announced 14 soldiers have been killed in the battles and as efforts to reach a ceasefire were underway.

A military source told LBCI television: “We have allowed a temporary ceasefire so that a Muslim Scholars Committee delegation can enter Arsal and return with the hostage soldiers, which is the first condition for continuing the implementation of the agreement's remaining points.”

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil called on Monday on the international community to support Lebanon and offer aid to the Lebanese army to confront terrorism, considering the region to be stuck between Islamist groups and Israel.

“Terrorism is moving from an area to another but it will surely be buried on Lebanese territories,” Bassil said during a meeting for the Palestine Committee of the Non-Aligned Movement held in Tehran.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam described on Monday the situation in the northeastern border town of Arsal as “difficult,” expressing hope that ceasefire attempts would be successful.

“Our conditions are clear, gunmen must withdraw to the outskirts (of Arsal) and then outside Lebanese territories and all security members taken hostage must be released,” Salam told al-Mustaqbal newspaper.

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas denied on Monday that regional countries were involved in talks to restore calm in the northeastern border town of Arsal.

“No foreign country intervened to restore calm in the area, but concerned lawmakers and residents are carrying out their tasks in this regard,” Derbas told al-Liwaa newspaper.

At least 44 people were killed in and near the Syrian capital Sunday in regime air strikes and rebel mortar fire, reports from a monitoring group and state media said.

At least 32 people were killed in Syrian regime air raids on two rebel-held towns near Damascus on Sunday, a monitoring group said.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights head Rami Abdel Rahman said 17 people were killed in Douma, northeast of the capital, and 15 others in Kfar Batna, to the east of Damascus.

Fierce clashes between the army and armed groups in the eastern border region of Arsal continued into a second day on Sunday as the army announced that 10 of its troops have been killed and 25 others wounded.

In the evening, a humanitarian truce was reportedly reached between the army and the gunmen following efforts by the Muslim Scholars Committee.

Fighters from the Islamic State jihadist group on Sunday wrested control of the northwestern Iraqi town of Sinjar, near the Syrian border, from Kurdish forces, Kurdish officials said.

"The (Kurdish) peshmerga have withdrawn from Sinjar, Daash has entered the city," Kheiri Sinjari told AFP, using IS' former Arabic acronym.