Jordan offered Wednesday to free a female jihadist in exchange for a Jordanian pilot held by the Islamic State group, which is threatening to execute the airman and a Japanese journalist.

It came after the parents of the hostages made last-ditch pleas for their lives as a deadline set by IS for the release of the would-be suicide bomber approached.

Security forces in the central Bekaa region arrested a number of Syrians for belonging to an armed extremist group, reported the National News Agency on Saturday.

It said that state security forces arrested three Syrians, identifying them as Aa.H., H.H., and A.Aa.

Islamic State fighters accused of atrocities in Syria are expected to be added to a list being drawn by the United Nations of possible war crime indictees, the chief rights investigator said Friday.

Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, who heads the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said incriminating evidence against IS would be easier to collect because "there are indications of a strong chain of command."

The jihadist Islamic State group took control of the rebel-held half of the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor on Monday, buoyed by advances in neighboring Iraq, a monitoring group said.

Rival rebel groups fighting forces loyal to President Bashar Assad either gave in and joined the IS or fled from the strategic Euphrates valley city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The opposition Syrian National Council has accused Hizbullah of “trading with the organs” of Syrian refugees to cope with the “financial hardship” the party is going through due its war efforts in the neighboring country.

The party “has devised an emergency plan aimed at reining in its financial deficit which is growing day after day,” the SNC said in a “security report” published by CNN Arabic on Sunday.

France announced Saturday that it has deported a Tunisian who was accused of recruiting young jihadists to fight in Syria, deeming him a threat to national security.

The interior ministry said the 28-year-old was expelled to Tunisia on Thursday "as a matter of absolute urgency in view of the threat that his presence posed for public safety and state security."

A couple and their four children, the youngest just six months old, were killed Sunday in Syrian army air raids in the northern province of Aleppo, a monitoring group said.

"An entire family was killed in air raids in Tal Rifaat in the north of Aleppo province," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Iran urged world governments Thursday to respect the will of Syrian voters in giving its close ally President Bashar Assad a new term in a poll dismissed by the West as a farce.

"Iran insists on respect for the vote of the Syrian people as they are the only ones entitled to decide their political future," the foreign ministry said.

Islamist rebels detonated explosives planted in a tunnel under an army base in northwestern Idlib on Wednesday, killing or injuring dozens, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Britain-based group said the explosives blew up under a checkpoint inside Wadi Deif army base, which opposition fighters have been trying to capture for more than a year.

The evacuation of rebel-held parts of Syria's Homs began Wednesday under an unprecedented deal which hands back control to the government weeks before the presidential election.

After nearly two years of government siege, weary civilians and rebel forces made their way out of the shelled-out ruins of Old City and surrounding areas on buses taking them to opposition territory in northern Homs province.