They are veterans of Syria's rebellion, trying for years to bring down President Bashar Assad. But these days they're doing little fighting with his military. They're struggling to find a place in a bewildering battlefield where several wars are all being waged at once by international powers.

Syria's civil war has become a madhouse of forces from Turkey, the United States, Syrian Kurds, the Islamic State group, al-Qaida as well as Assad's allies Russia, Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah, Iraqi and Afghan Shiite militias — all with their own alliances and agendas.

The Russian military says its warships in the Mediterranean Sea have fired four cruise missiles at the Islamic State group's positions in Syria.

The Russian Defense Ministry says in a statement on Wednesday that the Admiral Essen frigate and the Krasnodar submarine launched the missiles at IS targets in the area of the ancient city of Palmyra.

Lebanon's ministry of economy is seeking to ban the 2017 Wonder Woman movie because its lead actress — Gal Gadot — is an Israeli, though a formal request for a ban has not yet been received, a Lebanese security official said Tuesday.

A ban would require a recommendation from a six-ministry-member committee, a process that also has not yet began, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

More airstrikes and artillery shelling on Monday hit the northern Syrian city of Raqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State group, as U.S.-backed fighters pushed closer to the extremists' stronghold, activists said.

The developments come ahead of what is expected to be a major battle for Raqa in the coming weeks.

The Libya connection in the May 22 Manchester concert suicide bombing and Friday's attack on Christians in Egypt has shone a light on the threat posed by militant Islamic groups that have taken advantage of lawlessness in the troubled North African nation to put down roots, recruit fighters and export jihadists to cause death and carnage elsewhere.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday hailed President Michel Aoun, Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, the Lebanese government and al-Mustaqbal Movement over their stances that sought to dissociate Lebanon from the resolutions and statements of the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh.

Mark Zuckerberg is giving a commencement address at Harvard, where he dropped out 12 years ago to focus on Facebook.

Zuckerberg, 33, follows another famous Harvard dropout, Bill Gates, who spoke before its graduates a decade ago. Steve Jobs, who dropped out of Reed College in Oregon, gave Stanford's commencement speech in 2005.

General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim stressed that the agency's strenuous efforts against terror groups entrenched on Lebanon's porous border, have not stop it from pursuing the battle against Israeli spies, Ad Diyar daily reported on Monday.

The agency is increasingly vigilant in “monitoring and arresting Israeli agents,” said Ibrahim stressing that “the battle with Takfiri terrorism did not stop us from pursuing and dismantling networks dealing with the Israeli enemy,” he told the daily in an interview.

A pair of veteran Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, who endured repeated failures, expressed rare optimism about President Donald Trump's efforts to strike a Mideast peace deal.

Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat and former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni spoke at the World Economic Forum's regional meeting Saturday.

A suicide bombing near the oil-rich city of Basra killed at least eight people as the Islamic State group took the fight against Iraqi forces deep into the country's south, a military commander said Saturday.

Five civilians and three troops were killed when the bomber blew up his explosives-laden car on Friday at a checkpoint north of Basra just behind a bus waiting to be cleared, said chief of the Basra Operations Command, Lt. Gen. Jamil al-Shimmari.