Qatar's emir said in Germany on Wednesday that his wealthy Gulf state does not back Islamic "terrorist organizations", and Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had no reason to doubt him.

The leaders spoke in Berlin where the emir was visiting, some three weeks after a German minister angered Doha by linking it to financing of the jihadist militant group Islamic State (IS).

Jihadists have set hard demands in exchange for the release of the Lebanese soldiers and policemen, who were abducted in the northeastern border town of Arsal, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The daily pointed out that the al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) raised the ceiling of their demands when Qatari and Turkish authorities announced that they entered the line of negotiations to release of the kidnapped security personnel.

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq warned on Monday of the dangerous situation in the northeastern border town of Arsal with the onset of winter as gunmen would have to leave their positions on the outskirts either back into Syria or would enter the village.

“If the jihadists decided to advance into Arsal at the beginning of winter new clashes would erupt with the Lebanese army,” Mashnouq said in an interview with the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat.

A Qatari delegation is expected to arrive on Tuesday in Lebanon after a short one-day visit to Doha by a Lebanese delegation headed by Prime Minister Tammam Salam.

The delegation, according to An Nahar newspaper, is set to follow up the case of the Lebanese soldiers and policemen abducted by jihadists.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam hoped on Sunday that the case of the Lebanese soldiers and policemen abducted by jihadists would make a “step forward,” reiterating his call for patience and national unity to help Qatar mediate for their release.

“There is a decision to resolve this case in all possible ways,” said Salam following talks with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.

Leaders of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood exiled in Qatar will leave the Gulf country after it came under enormous pressure to cut support for the Islamist group, a Brotherhood official said.

Amr Darrag, a leader of the Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, said several members were relocating to "spare Qatar embarrassment", in a statement posted on his Facebook page late Friday.

The Qatari government said it helped to secure the release of 45 Fijian peacekeepers kidnapped by al-Qaida linked Syrian rebels on the Golan Heights last month.

Sheikh Mustafa al-Hujeiri a.k.a. Abu Taqiyeh, who has been mediating with Islamist gunmen the release of abducted Lebanese security personnel, withdrew from negotiations as a high-ranking security delegation is expected to head to Qatar on Friday.

“I have withdrawn from the negotiations,” Sheikh Hujeiri told An Nahar newspaper.

In finally tackling the jihadist threat in Syria and Iraq, Washington and Gulf Arab states are confronting a "monster" that has come back to bite them, partly through their own failings, analysts say.

After a stop Wednesday in Baghdad, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will hold talks Thursday with Arab states and Turkey in Saudi Arabia to broaden an international alliance set to act against the Islamic State movement (IS).

The ministerial panel tasked with following up the case of abducted Lebanese soldiers and policemen is mulling all the available options in coordination with a Qatari delegation, which is negotiating the release of the hostages with Islamist kidnappers.

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq said on Wednesday in statements published in several local newspapers that “all options are being discussed without any exception, with negotiations at the forefront.”