Iraqi troops are gearing up for a long-awaited offensive to retake Mosul, the country's second biggest city and an important stronghold of the Islamic State group.

Iraq has promised to recapture Mosul by year's end and U.S. top brass have hinted an operation could start next month, but the offensive to retake the jihadist bastion faces serious challenges.

A "minister" in Syria's opposition government was among at least 12 people killed in a car bomb attack in the south of the country on Thursday, the body's spokesman said.

"Twelve people, including the (opposition) provisional government's local administration minister, Yaacoub al-Ammar, were killed" and dozens more were wounded, Shadi al-Jundi told AFP by telephone.

A top EU lawyer on Thursday said Islamist movement Hamas and Sri Lankan rebel group LTTE should be taken off the bloc's terror list because procedural mistakes invalidated the decision to put them on it.

More than 120 rebels and dozens of their relatives on Thursday left the last rebel-held district of Syria's Homs city under a deal with the regime, the governor said. 

Moroccan police have arrested four "dangerous" suspected jihadists linked to the Islamic State group who were planning attacks across the country, the government said on Thursday.

The U.N.'s deputy envoy for Syria said Thursday that he hoped peace talks could resume in the coming weeks, despite "grim" events on the ground.

Yemeni rebels and their allies charged Thursday that an American detained in the capital this week had provided target coordinates for air strikes by their foes in a Saudi-led coalition.

The White Helmets, a Syrian civil organization of emergency responders in rebel-held areas, on Thursday won the Right Livelihood Award, the jury for the Swedish human rights prize announced.

Ten jihadists and three pro-government fighters died in clashes Thursday around the last positions of the Islamic State group in the Libyan coastal city of Sirte, medical and military sources said.