Six suspected Syrian militants were arrested Monday at an army checkpoint in the northeastern border town of Arsal, state-run National News Agency reported.

“Lebanese army intelligence agents arrested at the Ain al-Shaab checkpoint in Arsal six Syrians suspected of belonging to militant groups,” NNA said.

Greece's police department on Monday said it had suspended an officer serving on the Aegean island of Kos after he was caught on camera allegedly striking a migrant.

"An investigation has been ordered in relation to pictures posted on websites and social media, showing punishable acts by a police officer," the department said in a statement.

Syrian rebels fired around 1,000 rockets, mortar rounds and home-made projectiles at two besieged Shiite towns in Idlib province, killing eight civilians, a monitoring group said on Monday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the civilians including a child were killed in Fuaa in the heavy fire which also targeted the town of Kafraya.

A pregnant 15-year-old Swedish girl is being held by the Islamic State group in Syria after running away from her foster home with her boyfriend to join al-Qaida, Swedish media reported Monday.

The Swedish foreign ministry remained tight-lipped about the case, confirming only minimal details.

Prominent Syrian rights defender Mazen Darwish has been released after more than three years in prison pending a verdict in his case at the end of this month, his wife said Monday.

"He has been freed ahead of a final verdict in his case on August 31," Darwish's wife Yara Bader told AFP.

Al-Qaida's Syria affiliate Al-Nusra Front has announced a surprise withdrawal from its front lines against its jihadist rival Islamic State in areas along Syria's northern border with Turkey.

It said the decision was being taken to avoid cooperating with a U.S.-Turkish plan to create an IS-free zone in northern Aleppo province, along the Turkish border.

Syria's President Bashar Assad has vowed to punish a cousin who is accused of killing a military officer, the family of the victim told the Syrian daily Al-Watan on Monday.

Suleiman Assad is accused of shooting dead Colonel Hassan al-Sheikh in an apparent road rage incident on Thursday evening.

The United States for the first time Sunday deployed half a dozen F-16 warplanes to Turkey to help operations against the Islamic State group, U.S. officials said.

The deployment marks the first time since an international coalition began bombing IS targets in Iraq and Syria a year ago that U.S. jets will launch strikes from Turkey, following an accord signed with Ankara late last month.

The Islamic State group advanced Sunday against rival rebel forces, including Islamists, in a bid to capture a series of key villages in northern Syria, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said IS jihadists seized full control of Umm Housh, one of four villages in the northern province of Aleppo that lie along a rebel supply line from Turkey, which is a major backer of Syria's opposition. 

Nearly 400 members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have been killed and hundreds injured in two weeks of Turkish airstrikes on positions in northern Iraq, the official Anatolia news agency reported on Sunday.

The report, which could not be independently verified, said at least four PKK leaders and 30 female rebel fighters were among the dead.