A Jordanian military tribunal acquitted five university students of incitement charges on Sunday leveled over accusations they had engaged in "devil worship" and desecrated the Koran, a court official said.

"The court declared the students innocent and ordered them freed for lack of evidence," the official told Agence France Presse, without elaborating.

More than 1.5 million Syrians have fled their conflict-ravaged homeland, the U.N.'s refugee agency said Friday, warning that the real figure could be even higher as the tally only reflected those who register with aid groups.

Dan McNorton, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters that close to 250,000 Syrians were being registered each month.

Jordan's foreign ministry said Thursday Amman will host a meeting of the so-called "Friends of Syria" group next week to discuss latest developments in Syria's civil war.

Spokeswoman Sabah Rafei told Agence France Presse the "foreign ministers of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar, the United States, Britain, France, Turkey, Germany and Italy will meet in Amman" on Wednesday.

A Jordanian air force plane on a training flight crashed on Thursday due to a technical failure, killing the pilot and a trainee, an official in the armed forces' general command said in a statement.

"At 6:55 am (0355 GMT) on Thursday morning one of the training planes, a Firefly, at the King Hussein air force college (in Mafraq, in northern Jordan), crashed in a training area to the west of the college after a technical failure during a routine training flight," the statement said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will take part in a meeting of the so-called "Friends of Syria" group in Jordan next week, a U.S. official confirmed Wednesday.

"The secretary looks forward to attending," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told journalists about the talks to be hosted in Amman, adding that "a substantial amount of our diplomatic energy is focused on this."

Jordan's foreign ministry said on Tuesday Amman will host a meeting of the so-called "Friends of Syria" group next week to discuss latest developments in Syria's civil war.

"The foreign ministers of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, the United States, Britain, France, Turkey, Germany and Italy will hold a meeting in Amman in mid-next week," ministry spokeswoman Sabah Rafei told Agence France Presse.

Five Arab countries and Turkey have reiterated that President Bashar Assad should have no role in the future of Syria, as Russia and the United States proposed a peace conference.

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as that of Turkey -- all supporters of the Syrian opposition -- expressed their stand at a meeting late Monday in Abu Dhabi, WAM Emirati news agency said.

Hizbullah fighters have been advancing swiftly into southern Syria and have reached the flashpoint southern town of Daraa near the border with Jordan, media reports said on Tuesday.

A source close to Hizbullah told the Kuwaiti al-Qabas newspaper that Hizbullah fighters played a significant role in helping the regime troops to take full power of the strategic town of Kherbet Ghazleh near the highway linking the capital Damascus with Jordan.

Islamist terror suspect Abu Qatada will voluntarily return to Jordan if a treaty with Britain that forbids the use of evidence obtained by torture in legal cases is ratified by the Jordanian parliament, his lawyer said on Friday.

Lawyer Edward Fitzgerald gave the pledge at Britain's Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) in London, which is hearing a bid by the radical preacher against his detention for breaching his bail conditions.

MPs in Jordan on Wednesday unanimously demanded the government expel Israeli Ambassador Daniel Nevo after detectives in Israel detained top Islamic cleric the mufti of Jerusalem, state media reported.

"The (150-member) lower house of parliament unanimously demanded the government ask the Israeli ambassador to leave Jordan, and recall the Jordanian ambassador in Israel," Walid Obeidat, the official Petra news agency said.