Jordan on Monday arrested a former Al-Qaida mentor for propagating "terrorist" ideas, only four months after releasing him from jail for recruiting militants, a judicial source said.

Issam Barqawi, who was once mentor to Iraq's slain Al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was jailed after the state prosecutor accused him of "using the Internet to propagate the ideas of the terrorist group Al-Nusra Front", the source said.

Iraqi Premier Haidar al-Abadi was to visit Jordan Sunday for talks on combating jihadists from the Islamic State group, continuing a diplomatic push after a trip to Iran, his office said.

IS has overrun large areas of Iraq since June and also holds significant territory in Syria, posing a threat not only to those countries but their neighbors as well.

Twenty years after Israel signed a historic peace treaty with Jordan, the pact -- deeply unpopular among Jordanians -- is a strategic partnership both sides are determined to protect, experts say.

In the two decades since the October 26, 1994 accord, the frosty relationship has survived numerous tests, mostly from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A top European Union official said he informed Lebanese officials during his visit to Beirut that the presidential and parliamentary elections should be held to have a healthy democracy

Hugues Mingarelli, who is the Managing Director for North Africa, Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran and Iraq at the European External Action Service, said: “You have a democracy and there are routine elections and a multi-party system.”

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said the stance of Lebanon and Jordan at the upcoming Berlin conference on the Syrian refugees will be united.

In remarks to An Nahar daily published Friday, Derbas said that both countries are suffering from the same repercussions of the Syrians crisis that resulted in millions of refugees.

Jordan's King Abdullah said Tuesday the world was engaged in a battle against extremism as his country takes part in U.S.-led air strikes on Islamic State jihadists in Syria.

"All countries in the world are witnessing a war between moderation and extremism, and today Islam is plagued by a civil war," Abdullah told a meeting of Jordanian lawmakers.

Several drivers of refrigerated trucks transporting goods from Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley were killed and injured after they came under fire during battles between the Syrian army and rebels at the Syrian-Jordanian border.

The head of the Bekaa Farmers Gathering, Ibrahim Tarshishi, told Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) on Tuesday that there were deaths and injuries among the drivers of trucks at the Nasib crossing.

A Jordanian military court began on Monday the trial of eight suspects on charges of joining Hizbullah and trying to commit "terrorist acts" in the kingdom.

According to Jordan's Petra News Agency, the military commission at the State Security court held a session to begin the trial of eight people accused of belonging to Hizbullah.

A Jordanian court charged 26 people on Monday with "terrorist acts" following unrest that wounded four people, including two police, when security forces shut a market in central Amman.

They were arrested during clashes Friday evening that flared again on Saturday after stalls at Abdali second-hand clothing market were dismantled, a judicial source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The United Arab Emirates has expressed surprise after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden suggested the Gulf state had armed and financed jihadists in Syria, along with other regional powers.

Biden's remarks were "amazing and ignore the role of the Emirates in the fight against extremism and terrorism," the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Mohammad Gargash, said in a statement carried late Saturday by the official WAM news agency.