U.S. Ambassador David Hale on Monday warned the Lebanese against being dragged into the region's crises and said Lebanon needs a “fully functioning governance” so that international assistance becomes effective.

“Upholding the Baabda Declaration and adopting a true policy of dissociation from the conflict in Syria are essential,” Hale said following talks with Premier Tammam Salam at the Grand Serail.

At least 10 Syrian soldiers were killed in Israeli overnight air raids on positions near the Israeli-held Golan Heights, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Monday.

"At least 10 Syrian soldiers were killed in Israeli raids against military positions next to the occupied part of the Golan. Nine missiles were fired by aircraft and at least two tanks and two artillery batteries were destroyed," the Observatory said.

European Union foreign ministers agreed on Monday to impose tougher sanctions on Syria as the bloody conflict there enters its fourth summer.

"In view of the gravity of the situation in Syria," 12 government ministers would be hit with travel bans and asset freezes "given their responsibility for serious human rights violations," a statement said.

British security forces will find it impossible to monitor all the estimated 500 jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq after they return home, a former top intelligence official said Monday.

Richard Barrett, ex-head of counter-terrorism at the MI6 overseas security agency, told the BBC that authorities would have to try to identify the biggest threats.

The Lebanese army obtained satellite information from major countries that several Middle Eastern states that have embassies in Europe are recruiting fighters to engage in terrorist acts, An Nahar newspaper reported on Monday.

The daily said that the mentioned embassies are mostly recruiting north African nationals to train them to carry out security operations in the region.

Speaker Nabih Berri has called for the recruitment of thousands of soldiers and security personnel to confront terrorists and help the army and security agencies thwart future attacks.

Several local dailies published on Monday quoted Berri as saying that the authorities “should invest in security.”

Human Rights Watch on Monday urged Syrian rebel groups to stop enlisting teenagers in their ranks and warned their foreign backers that they could be implicated in "war crimes".

The New York-based rights watchdog accused rebels of using "children as young as 15 to fight in battles" as they try to overthrow President Bashar Assad in a bloody conflict that has lasted more than three years.

Israel carried out retaliatory air raids on Syrian army positions in the Golan Heights overnight after a teenager on the Israeli side was killed in an attack from Syria, the army said early Monday.

"The IDF (Israeli army) targeted nine Syrian army positions in response to the earlier attack that originated in Syria killing an Israeli teenager and injuring two other Israeli civilians," an army spokesman said.

Jihadists fighting in Syria's war put to use for the first time on Sunday American-made Humvees that they seized during a lightening offensive in Iraq this month, a monitor said.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, used the armored vehicles to capture the villages of Eksar and Maalal in Aleppo province, which borders Turkey, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

U.S. President Barack Obama has warned that extremist militants who have surged through Iraq in a lightning and brutal offensive could also destabilize other countries in the volatile region.

The jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is rampaging towards the capital Baghdad in its bid to create an Islamic state that will incorporate both Iraq and Syria.