The White House admitted Monday it should have sent a senior official to the massive rally against terrorism in Paris, as President Barack Obama came under fire for failing to travel to France.

"We should have sent someone with a higher profile to be there," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.

U.S. Central Command suspended its Twitter page on Monday after a group declaring sympathy for Islamic State jihadists hacked its social media accounts and posted internal documents.

In an embarrassing propaganda jab at the American military, a black-and-white banner with the image of a hooded fighter and the words "CyberCaliphate" and "I love you ISIS" replaced Central Command's standard Twitter banner.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his staff were involved in a minor road accident Monday during his visit to western India, but none of the party were injured, an official said.

Kerry was heading to the airport in Ahmedabad city in Gujarat state when his car and another in the motorcade were involved in the accident, a State Department official said. 

The American creator of "Maus", a graphic novel about the Holocaust, has denounced the "hypocrisy" of U.S. media for refusing to republish the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo magazine, targeted in an Islamist attack last week. 

Art Spiegelman said he "admires" Charlie Hebdo and thought the satirical magazine fulfilled its "mission" in 2006 by publishing a controversial caricature of Mohammed.

Dissidents in Cuba keen to get off the sidelines are reeling after the United States and the communist government here said they will seek to end decades of Cold War bad blood.

Following news of the historic shift, announced December 17, many members of illegal opposition groups were riled by what they see as a U.S. failure to get Havana to make specific pledges on human rights before seeking a new relationship.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday there was no "credible information" as yet that al-Qaida was behind the attacks in France that killed 17 people.

Holder spoke as dozens of heads of states joined hundreds of thousands of people in a massive display of unity and defiance against terrorism on the streets of Paris.

Islamic State group fighters attempting to retake a town in northern Iraq held by Kurdish peshmerga forces have killed at least 30 Kurds, an Iraqi military spokesman said Sunday.

The fighting began Saturday as the extremists approached the town of Gwer, just outside of the northern city of Mosul, which the Islamic State group controls, said Halgurd Hekmat, a spokesman for Iraqi Kurdish forces in Irbil. Hekmat said he had no information about casualties suffered by the Islamic State group.

The United States will host a summit on February 18 on how to fight "violent extremism around the world" in the wake of the Paris attacks, Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday.

Speaking in the French capital, where he was to take part in a massive demonstration to pay tribute to the victims of this week's Islamist militant attacks, Holder said the meeting would take place in Washington DC and would also aim to "pool our resources."

EU and U.S. security ministers met at France's interior ministry on Sunday to work out a joint response to the threat of jihadist attacks following days of carnage in Paris by three gunmen claiming to act on behalf of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

The gathering was being held just hours ahead of a massive public rally in Paris against terrorism that was to be attended by dozens of world leaders. 

Top U.S. diplomat John Kerry vowed that no act of terror would halt "the march of freedom" as he expressed solidarity Sunday with the people of France after last week's Islamist attacks.

"We stand together this morning with the people of France as they march in tribute to the victims of last week's murderous attack on the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo in Paris," the U.S. Secretary of State said in India.