Romania will expel seven foreign nationals accused of recruiting members for the Islamic State group and Al-Qaida and propagating their ideas in the eastern European country, officials said Saturday.

The Bucharest court of appeal this week ruled in separate cases that the seven should be prohibited from returning to the country for between three to seven years, Romania's interior intelligence agency SRI said in a statement.

The streets of the Syrian city of Idlib are still virtually deserted a week after its capture from government forces by Islamist rebels including fighters from Al-Qaida affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

All around, the carcasses of cars and rubble of crumpled buildings bear witness to the ferocity of the fighting for the northwestern city, which is only the second provincial capital to be lost by the government in more than four years of civil war.

Once a source of national pride, Syria's national tipple arak has fallen victim to the country's conflict, with a shrinking customer base, supply routes severed and cheap counterfeits aplenty.

The colorless liquor, made from fermented grapes flavored with aniseed, is consumed throughout the Levant, mixed with water that turns it a milky white.

The Pope led Catholics in prayer for persecuted Christians around the world at a Good Friday service in Rome, a day after 148 students and security officers were massacred by Shebab Islamists in Kenya.

A small group of believers carried a cross between 14 "stations" evoking the last hours of Jesus's life during the traditional Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession, as the Pope looked on.

The United States on Friday condemned the latest wave of violence in Syria which has left dozens of civilians dead and displaced thousands more.

Fierce fighting between forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and Islamist rebels, including the Al-Qaida affiliated Al-Nusra Front in Idlib city, had reportedly left more than 100 civilians dead and forced 30,000 people to flee.

Head of the union of Arab tribes Sheikh Jassem al-Askar revealed that he is carrying out a series of contacts with a number of tribe leaders, who wield influence in Syria, to ensure the release of the Lebanese truck drivers who have been stranded since Wednesday on the Syrian-Jordanian border, reported al-Akhbar newspaper on Saturday.

He told the daily that he “received a pledge to release the drivers.”

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has announced its conditions for the release of Hussein Seifeddine, who was kidnapped from the northeastern border town of Arsal earlier this week, reported As Safir newspaper on Saturday.

Arsal municipal chief Ali al-Hujeiri told the daily that the ISIL informed him that it does not want to hold negotiations over him, “but it wants 150,000 dollars and three trucks loaded with food and relief aid in return for his release.”

Lebanon will reportedly receive 700 million dollars at most from the recent donors conference held in Kuwait aimed at helping Syrian refugees, said An Nahar daily on Saturday.

The exact number of funds has not been revealed yet, but it will receive only a third of what it actually needs, it added.

A 30-year-old woman from Philadelphia was charged Friday with attempting to join extremists in Syria, the second Syria-linked terror case involving U.S. women announced by prosecutors in days.

Keonna Thomas, 30, was charged with attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization after allegedly posting more than a year of tweets in support of the Islamic State (IS) group.

Turkey will at the weekend deport nine British citizens detained on the Syrian border after they tried to cross into areas controlled by Islamic State (IS) jihadists, reports said Friday.

The Turkish authorities have completed their investigation into the nine, whose case has attracted huge attention in Britain after it emerged that they included four children and the son of a British local politician, the Anatolia news agency reported.