U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council on Friday strongly condemned the attacks in France, Kuwait and Tunisia and said those responsible must face justice.

One person was decapitated in southeastern France, while in Tunisia gunmen killed at least 37 people at a beach resort, and 27 people died in a suicide bombing claimed by Islamic State jihadists in Kuwait.

Tunisia cannot stand up to the jihadist threat alone, President Beji Caid Essebsi said Friday after a gunman killed 28 people at a tourist resort, calling for a unified global strategy.

"We note that Tunisia faces an international movement. It cannot respond alone to this. On the same day at the same time France has been the target of such an operation, and Kuwait too," Essebsi told AFP.

European leaders condemned Friday's "heinous" suspected Islamist attack on a gas factory in France and massacres in Tunisia and Kuwait, vowing to maintain a united front against "barbarism".

One person was decapitated near Lyon in southeastern France while in Tunisia gunmen killed at least 27 people at a beach resort and in Kuwait a suicide bombing at a mosque claimed by Islamic State jihadists killed 13.

A man pulled a gun hidden in a beach umbrella and opened fire at a packed Tunisian holiday resort Friday, massacring 37 people in the country's worst attack in recent history.

The carnage at the popular Mediterranean resort of Port el Kantaoui came the same day as a suicide bomber killed 25 people at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait and a suspected Islamist attacked a factory in France.

Lebanese officials have warned of a huge Syrian refugee influx to Lebanon if the so-called Damascus battle erupts, An Nahar daily reported on Friday.

The ministerial sources told the newspaper that if such an influx takes place, the displaced Syrians will include supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad from different sects.

Four Tunisian police who harassed coffee shop owners who stay open during daylight hours in the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan have been sacked, officials said Thursday.

The interior ministry said in a statement that the district chief for Monastir in central Tunisia and three policemen from Marsa, a northern suburb of Tunis, were sacked for "abuse of power".

A U.S. airstrike in northern Iraq has killed an Islamic State operative who was a person of interest in the 2012 Benghazi attack, the Pentagon said Monday.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said Ali Awni al-Harzi of Tunisia was killed in Mosul on June 15. 

Tunisia said Friday it was shutting its consulate in conflict-hit Libya as 10 staffers abducted by an armed militia in Tripoli returned home after a week in captivity.

The staff were seized when gunmen burst into the consulate in the Libyan capital, in the latest attack targeting foreign citizens and diplomatic missions in the lawless nation.

Three of 10 staffers kidnapped from Tunisia's Tripoli consulate by Libyan militia last week have been released, and the remainder are expected to be freed soon, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

Their release comes as Tunisian authorities announced that a Libyan man they have been holding, whose freedom was reportedly demanded by the kidnappers, is to be deported.

The jihadist Islamic State group on Tuesday claimed responsibility for an attack in central Tunisia that killed three policemen and wounded 12.

In a statement posted on Twitter, IS said the attack in the Sidi Bouzid region was carried out by "two soldiers of the caliphate who attacked two military sites with small arms."