Syria's Al-Qaida offshoot and other rebel groups advanced Friday towards a military airport that is the last remaining government-held facility in the northwestern province of Idlib, a monitor said.

Al-Qaida-affiliated Al-Nusra Front and other Islamist groups "seized the entrance" to the Abu Duhur airport after carrying out several suicide bombings on motorbikes and "seizing several positions on its outskirts," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council on Thursday that he is planning to set up a three-person team to investigate alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

The move came amid new reports of a mustard gas attack in Syria that local activists said could have been carried out by Islamic State jihadists.

Syria has agreed to grant visas to 47 U.N. staff members following months of haggling that have undermined U.N. relief efforts in the war-torn country, the U.N. aid chief said Thursday.

Stephen O'Brien, the under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, told the Security Council Thursday that the Syrian mission to the United Nations had informed him of the decision to allow the U.N. staff in the country.

Syrian courts are hearing a series of cases against officials accused of corruption and mismanagement, a judge told a newspaper close to the government on Thursday.

"Numerous cases are currently underway against officials from government institutions accused of embezzling public funds, theft and mismanagement," Yassin Kahal, a high-ranking Damascus judge, told Al-Watan newspaper.

A suicide attack claimed by the Islamic State group killed two Iraqi generals on Thursday in the key battleground province of Anbar, as the jihadists made gains in neighboring Syria.

IS overran large areas of Iraq in 2014 and seized Anbar capital Ramadi earlier this year. It also controls major territory in Syria, where it has thrived amid a bloody civil war.

Islamic State group fighters seized five villages from rebel forces in Syria's northern Aleppo province overnight and entered the outskirts of a key opposition bastion there, a monitor said Thursday.

The jihadist group seized three villages near the town of Marea and entered its southern outskirts, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

A new 48-hour truce between Syrian regime forces and rebels in three towns entered into force on Thursday after negotiations, a mediator and a monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said that fighting and rocket fire had stopped in the rebel bastion of Zabadani and the besieged government-held villages of Fuaa and Kafraya.

Speaker Nabih Berri has been holding contacts with Lebanese political parties to revive the all-party talks that he had launched in 2006, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Thursday.

Berri has been holding consultations to bring the rival politicians on the dialogue table either in Ain el-Tineh or in parliament, the daily said.

Queen Rania of Jordan said Wednesday that moderate Muslims were not doing enough to fight against IS jihadists and their "diabolical ideology."

Speaking at a major French business gathering in Jouy-en-Josas near Paris, the 44-year-old said helping the Middle East's youth was crucial in the fight against the extremist group, which controls swathes of Iraq and Syria on Jordan's doorstep.

Five people were killed and 20 wounded Wednesday when rebel rocket fire hit a petrol station in a government-held part of Syria's central Homs city, state news agency SANA said.

The missile fire set fire to a tanker as it was unloading in the Inshaat neighborhood of Homs, which is the provincial capital and largely under government control, SANA said.