Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi criticized Hizbullah's Loyalty to the Resistance bloc chief MP Mohmmed Raad's response to Mustaqbal Movement leader MP Saad Hariri over the developments in Yemen and Iran's role in the region, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal on Friday.

He said: “Those speaking against the usurpation of the will of the Yemeni people have condemned themselves in supporting the actions of the Syrian regime, which has destroyed its cities and villages on its residents.”

A group of 14 Palestinian factions said Thursday they backed a joint military operation with the Syrian government to expel Islamic State group jihadists from the Yarmuk camp in southern Damascus.

After a meeting of the factions in the Syrian capital, Palestine Liberation Organization official Ahmed Majdalani said the groups supported a coordinated military effort in the camp.

The U.N. has launched an emergency vaccination campaign against lumpy skin disease and goat plague among animals brought to Lebanon by refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict, a report said Thursday.

Some of the 1.5 million refugees have brought with them large numbers of un-vaccinated sheep, goats, cattle and other animals, raising concerns over the spread of high impact animal diseases, the U.N.'s food agency said.

Talks between the Syrian government and members of the tolerated opposition were set to end Thursday in Moscow with little sign of progress towards ending the spiraling conflict in the country.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was due to open a final meeting between the two sides but opposition activists said there was little chance of a breakthrough after holding two days of talks with the delegation of Bashar Assad's regime.

Sweden will send up to 120 troops to northern Iraq to train Iraqi and Kurdish fighters as part of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group, foreign minister Margot Wallstroem said Thursday.

"In the first stage 35 soldiers will take part in the mission but the number can rise to 120," Wallstroem told news agency TT.

Mortar fire has killed 11 civilians, all but one of them women and children,  in Egypt's North Sinai, where the government is battling an Islamist insurgency, police and medics said Thursday.

The mortar rounds, which hit two houses in a village southeast of the provincial capital El-Arish Wednesday night, also wounded six people, the officials said without specifying who was behind the attack.

The Saudi Ambassador to Beirut, Ali Awadh Asiri, has urged Hizbullah without naming it to deal with its own issues rather than meddle in Riyadh's affairs.

The parties that “shove” themselves into the Saudi-led coalition's move against Huthi rebels in Yemen and which “have the audacity” to criticize Saudi Arabia “should deal with their own affairs,” Asiri said in remarks published on Thursday.

Canada carried out its first air strikes in Syria on Wednesday the military said, expanding Ottawa's contribution to the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, after parliament approved a larger role in the conflict.

Two F-18s using precision-guided munitions struck a IS position near the Syrian city of Raqqa, before safely returning to base, the military announced.

British counter-terrorism police are investigating the murder of a Syrian preacher described as a prominent critic of President Bashar Assad, London police said on Wednesday.

Abdul Hadi Arwani, 48, was found dead in his car with gunshots to the chest in north-west London on Tuesday.

Nearly half of European jihadists known to have traveled to territory held by the extremist Islamic State group are French, a report by the country's upper house Senate revealed Wednesday.

Just over 1,430 French people have made their way to Iraq and Syria, representing 47 percent of jihadists from Europe that are known and accounted for, Senator Jean-Pierre Sueur, who spearheaded a parliamentary probe into jihadist networks, told reporters.