Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday crimes committed against Christians in the Middle East were tantamount to "genocide", joining other high-ranking diplomats in calling for action.

Like other minorities, Christians have been the target of brutal violence waged by jihadists in countries such as Libya or Syria.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil announced Monday that Lebanon “prevented the fall” of Syria, which has been witnessing a bloody conflict since around four years, as he stressed that Damascus must not interfere in the Lebanese affairs.

“It is our duty not to betray or stab Syria, because no matter how much circumstances change, Syria will remain our close neighbor, seeing as we have the scourge of Israel on the other side of the border,” said Bassil in a speech before Lebanese expats at the Arab Social Club in the Venezuelan city of Maturin.

The Turkish military has launched disciplinary proceedings against a soldier for failing to resist Islamic State (IS) insurgents after he went missing on the border with Syria, media reported on Monday.

Ozgur Ors, a non-commissioned officer, went missing in January after he crossed the border into Syria from the southeastern Turkish province of Kilis in an operation to capture a group of smugglers.

Hassan Ghandour, who hails from the southern city of Sidon, was killed in the conflict in Syria.

Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5) said that his family confirmed its son's death in Syria.

Syrian regime forces and Kurdish militia fought separate battles with the Islamic State group on Monday in a strategic area near the Iraqi and Turkish borders, a monitoring group said.

Forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) launched uncoordinated offensives against IS in the northeastern province of Hasakeh, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

After years of strained relations over the Syrian conflict, Palestinian Islamist group Hamas is looking to mend ties with its traditional backer Iran. But reconciliation is proving far from simple.

The outbreak of Syria's civil war nearly four years ago provoked a rupture between Hamas and Iran, after the movement threw its support behind rebels fighting President Bashar Assad, a close ally of Tehran.

U.S. forces are targeting the London man believed to be "Jihadi John," an Islamic State executioner, a senior Democratic senator said Sunday.

London graduate Mohammed Emwazi was unmasked by media this week as allegedly the English-speaking executioner responsible for the beheading of at least five Western hostages held by the IS group in Syria and Iraq.

Islamic State group jihadists on Sunday freed 19 of the 220 Assyrian Christians they took hostage in Syria last week, after a ransom was paid for their release, activists said.

"Nineteen Assyrian hostages arrived on Sunday at the Church of Our Lady in Hasakeh after they were released by IS," said Osama Edward, the director of the Assyrian Network for Human Rights.

Pope Francis on Sunday denounced the "intolerable brutality" being inflicted on Christians and other minorities in Iraq and Syria by Islamic State group militants.

"Unfortunately the tragic news just keeps coming from Iraq and Syria," the pontiff said after his weekly prayer in St. Peter's Square, without specifically naming IS.

Syria's exiled opposition praised France on Sunday for maintaining its "exemplary" opposition to President Bashar Assad after a group of French lawmakers made a controversial visit to Damascus this week.

"The position of France has always been exemplary, and your country has consistently held to the side of the Syrian people against any attempt to rehabilitate the regime in Damascus under false pretenses," the group's leader, Khaled Khoja, wrote in a letter to the French government.