War-torn Syria has asked the U.N. atomic watchdog for help in converting a nuclear facility and shipping abroad potentially dangerous nuclear material, the head of the watchdog said Monday.

"We have received a request from Syria early this year... We are studying the request," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano told reporters.

Belgian authorities on Monday charged two people in connection with a probe into a Chechen extremist group suspected of seeking to recruit jihadists to fight in Syria, federal prosecutors said.

The two were among 16 people detained for questioning in 21 raids that took place Monday mainly in the Flemish-speaking Flanders region, but the other 14 were later released, a prosecutor's spokesman told AFP. 

Hizbullah fighters managed to link Monday the outskirts of the town of Fleita in the Syrian al-Qalamoun region with the edges of the northeastern border town of Arsal.

Hizbullah's al-Manar TV channel reported that the party also seized a number of valleys, including: Al-Turkman, al-Qusair, Aqbat al-Qusaira, al-Siri, al-Hariqa, and al-Tanine.

Syrian opposition representatives met in Cairo Monday in a bid to forge a new, broader alliance against President Bashar Assad's regime and agree on a roadmap for ending the conflict.

The new grouping would offer an alternative to the National Coalition, the exiled opposition bloc that is widely recognized and supported by Arab and Western governments, organizers said.

At least 49 civilians, including six children, were killed on Monday in Syrian government air strikes on a town in Idlib province in the country's northwest, a monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the raids hit a square in the town of Al-Janudiyah, in the west of the province, which is now almost completely controlled by opposition forces.

Libya's warring factions meet for a new round of "decisive" talks Monday as the U.N. scrambles for a peace deal before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan next week.

Amid warnings the oil producer is on the verge of collapsing into a failed state, United Nations envoy Bernardino Leon is pushing for an agreement before the June 17 start of Ramadan.

Eritrea's government is responsible for systematic and widespread human rights abuses on an almost unprecedented scale, driving some 5,000 Eritreans to flee every month, a U.N. investigation said Monday.

Wrapping up a year-long investigation, a U.N. commission of inquiry on the human rights situation in Eritrea described a nightmare-like society in the authoritarian Horn of Africa state.

A couple and their five children were killed overnight in Syria's northern Aleppo province in strikes by the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group, a monitor said on Monday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group, said the deaths raised to 148 the number of civilians killed in U.S.-led strikes in Syria since they began in September.

World leaders Monday warned Russia it would face stepped-up sanctions for its "aggression" in Ukraine, as they wrapped up a G7 meeting also pledging strong action to fight climate change.

At a luxury retreat nestled in the picture-perfect Bavarian Alps, the leaders of the most powerful countries also tackled threats to global security posed by Islamist extremism and risks to the world economy from Greece.

A far-right Israeli minister on Sunday called for the international community to endorse his country's 1981 annexation of Syria's Golan Heights, where he called for increased Jewish settlement.

"I call on the international community... to recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan," Naftali Bennett, head of the Jewish Home party, said in a speech at a time of increasing world pressure on Israel over the occupied West Bank and Arab east Jerusalem.