Fierce fighting between jihadists and rival rebel groups in Syria has killed at least 700 in more than a week while hundreds more have gone missing, a monitoring group said Sunday.

Among those killed were dozens of casualties in 16 suicide attacks staged by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which is battling rebels mainly in northern Syria, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Wide-eyed Seif said his family had lost hope of seeing him again after jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant snatched him from his media office in Idlib province.

The 22-year-old was repeatedly beaten by his captors, before being sentenced to death for his media activism and his parents had already been told he was dead.

A bombing targeting a general in northern Iraq Sunday damaged his vehicle but left him unharmed, an official said, the latest of several attacks in the normally peaceful Kurdish region in recent months.

The magnetic "sticky bomb" attached to Brigadier General Bakhtiyar Fayikh's car detonated around 8:00 am (0500 GMT) outside his home in eastern Sulaimaniyah, the second-biggest city in the three-province autonomous region of Kurdistan.

A car bomb targeting army recruits killed at least eight people in Baghdad on Sunday, while six died in other blasts in the Iraqi capital, security and medical officials said.

Recruits gathered at a taxi and bus station in the Allawi area of Baghdad bore the brunt of the blast, which also wounded at least 12 people.

Israelis were on Sunday paying their last respects to Ariel Sharon, whose controversial life inspired admiration and provoked revulsion and whose death drew emotional reaction even after eight years in a coma.

Celebrated as a military hero at home, recognized as a pragmatic politician abroad and despised as a bloodthirsty criminal by the Palestinians and the Arab world, the former premier was nothing if not a polarizing figure.

Libya's deputy industry minister, Hassan al-Droui, was shot dead during a visit to his hometown of Sirte, east of Tripoli, security and hospital sources said Sunday.

The identity of the shooters was not immediately known, but the official's death was the first assassination of a member of the transitional government since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi's regime in October 2011.

U.S. top diplomat John Kerry headed Saturday for Paris to hold talks about the Syrian war, hoping to press the fractured opposition to participate in upcoming peace talks.

The Sunday meeting of the "Friends of Syria" grouping at the French foreign affairs ministry will include ministers from 11 countries that support the so-called Geneva 2 peace process as well as the president of Syria's main opposition National Coalition, Ahmed Jarba.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will visit five Gulf nations on a tour of the region next week focusing on the war in Syria, Iran's disputed nuclear program and Israel-Palestinian peace efforts.

Ashton will visit the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar on the trip which runs until January 16, according to a diplomatic source.

Palestinians on Saturday hailed the death of former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon, describing him as a "criminal" but regretting that he is now permanently beyond the reach of the law.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) also lamented the fact Sharon was never prosecuted, particularly over his role in the 1982 massacre of hundreds of Palestinians by Israel's Lebanese Phalangist allies in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.

The European Union's foreign policy supremo said Saturday she was "deeply concerned" by what she said were "illegal" Israeli plans for more than 1,800 new settler homes.

"I was deeply concerned to hear the latest announcement by the Israeli authorities to advance settlement plans once more," Catherine Ashton said in a statement.