The United States on Tuesday welcomed New Zealand's decision to send troops to Iraq to join a non-combat training mission to fight Islamic militants.

"As one of our partners in the coalition, New Zealand has already provided substantial humanitarian assistance to Iraq and Syria," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called for sanctions and an arms embargo to be imposed on Syria to punish the regime for its continued use of devastating barrel bombs in attacks.

Thousands of civilians have been killed or injured by barrel bombs, a crude weapon made from large oil drums, gas cylinders and water tanks, packed with explosives and scrap metal and dropped from helicopters, the U.S.-based rights organization said. 

Three teenage girls from London feared to have run off to join the Islamic State (IS) group are believed to have crossed from Turkey into Syria, British police said Tuesday.

Close friends Kadiza Sultana, 16, and 15-year-olds Shamima Begum and Amira Abase, boarded a flight from London Gatwick to Istanbul last Tuesday. Their families launched a public appeal for them to return home.

A South Korean teenager who went missing last month has joined the Islamic State (IS) group and is receiving training, South Korea's spy agency said Tuesday.

The 18-year-old middle school dropout, identified only by his surname Kim, went missing in Turkey on January 10. There had been speculation that he crossed into Syria to join the radical Islamist group.

New Zealand will send troops to Iraq on a non-combat mission to boost the local military's ability to fight the Islamic State (IS) organization, Prime Minister John Key said Tuesday.

Key said about 140 troops would begin a "behind the wire" mission in May after a request from the Iraqi government for international help in increasing its military capability to battle the jihadists.

Two simultaneous suicide attacks killed four people and wounded 13 on Monday in southern Damascus near a Shiite shrine, Syria's state news agency SANA reported.

The agency, quoting police, said the twin attack took place at a security checkpoint near the shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, a granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammed.

Turkey's decision to evacuate an historic tomb and the soldiers guarding it from Syrian territory was not a retreat, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday, rejecting opposition claims Ankara had surrendered the area to jihadists. 

Erdogan indicated the operation overnight Saturday was motivated by concerns the tomb and its Turkish guards could have come under attack by Islamic State (IS) militants who control the area.

The headmaster of a London school attended by three girls believed headed for Syria on Monday called for their return as police briefed staff and students on the threat of radicalization.

Mark Keary, headmaster of east London's Bethnal Green Academy, said the visiting police officers were part of a "support team" from the government's Prevent program called in following the girls' disappearance last week.

U.S.-led air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria have killed more than 1,600 people, mainly jihadists, since they began five months ago, a monitor said on Monday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said almost all of those killed were jihadists from IS and al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front, though it also documented the deaths of 62 civilians.

An obscure group called “Khorasan” is allegedly plotting to assassinate lawmakers affiliated to al-Mustaqbal Movement in an attempt to topple the dialogue between the party and Hizbullah.

According to As Safir newspaper published on Monday, security sources obtained information warning that Mustaqbal MPs will be targeted with attacks to hit the dialogue between the party and Hizbullah and to create a sectarian strife between Shiites and Sunnis in Lebanon.