The British government is poised to accept 15,000 Syrian refugees and hopes next month to get backing for air strikes against Islamic State jihadists, the Sunday Times reported.

Prime Minister David Cameron has been under pressure internationally and domestically to address the refugee crisis.

Rescuers in Cyprus on Sunday saved more than 100 refugees fleeing the war in Syria after their boat ran into trouble overnight off the Mediterranean island, authorities said.

The 114 people, including 54 women and children, had been aboard a small fishing boat about 40 nautical miles from the southern Cypriot port of Larnaca at the time they struck trouble, said a source in the island's Joint Rescue Coordination Centre.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry raised U.S. concerns about reports of "an imminent enhanced Russian military buildup" in Syria, in a phone call Saturday to his counterpart in Moscow, the U.S. State Department said.

"The secretary made clear that if such reports were accurate, these actions could further escalate the conflict, lead to greater loss of innocent life, increase refugee flows and risk confrontation with the anti-ISIL coalition operating in Syria," the State Department said.

France is considering joining U.S.-led coalition air strikes against Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria, a reversal of its current position, Le Monde daily said Saturday.

Neither the French presidency, the ministry of foreign affairs nor the defense ministry would comment on the report, with officials saying only that President Francois Hollande may address the question during his twice-yearly press conference on Monday.

Opposition Labor party leader Isaac Herzog called Saturday for Israel to take in Syrian refugees, recalling the plight of Jews who sought refuge from past conflicts.

"Our people has experienced first-hand the silence of the world and cannot be indifferent in the face of the murder and massacre raging in Syria," Herzog posted on his Facebook page.

Prime Minister David Cameron's hope that Britain would join air strikes against Islamic State (IS) group targets in Syria is fading due to the likely election of anti-war campaigner Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the opposition Labor Party.

After parliament returns Monday, Cameron's center-right government had hoped to call a vote on the issue in a bid to extend Britain's current role in coalition air strikes against IS targets in Iraq.

At least six regime security personnel were killed in unrest in the heartland of Syria's Druze minority after the assassination of an anti-government cleric, a monitor said on Saturday.

Supporters of Sheikh Wahid al-Balous, who was the leader of a powerful Druze militia, blamed the regime for twin car bombings in the southwestern city of Sweida that killed him and 27 other people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed Saudi Arabia's King Salman for a first and long-delayed White House summit Friday, marked by warm public words amid clashing views on Middle Eastern crises.

Obama made the rare move of greeting the 79-year-old monarch at the doors of the White House, as he hailed the "longstanding friendship" between the two countries.

The U.N. food agency said on Friday it has ceased assistance to 229,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan because of a lack of funds, but will continue to provide for 211,000 others.

"Due to a lack of funds we had to suspend from the first of September assistance to 229,000 Syrians who live in Jordan, outside (U.N.) refugee camps," World Food Program spokeswoman Dina El-Kassaby said.

Britain will provide an extra 100 million pounds (137 million euros, $153 million) in humanitarian aid for the Syrian crisis, bringing its total contribution to more than 1.0 billion pounds, Prime Minister David Cameron said Friday.

"That is the UK's largest-ever response to a humanitarian crisis. No other European country has come close to this level of support," he told a news conference in Madrid.