U.S. air raids in Syria overnight targeted and likely killed French bomb-maker David Drugeon, who had joined an Al-Qaida offshoot, a defense official told AFP Thursday.

"He was among the targets," said the senior U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

As a deadline for the controversial delivery of a warship to Russia nears, France faces a grueling dilemma: ditch the deal, lose billions and antagonize Moscow -- or go ahead and attract NATO's wrath.

Until the deadly crisis in Ukraine erupted this year, the 1.2 billion-euro ($1.5-billion) contract to build and sell two mammoth Mistral-class assault ships to the Russian navy had been firmly on track.

Britain, France and the United States are demanding that action be taken against senior officials from the U.N. mission in Sudan's Darfur who failed to report crimes by Sudanese forces, diplomats said Wednesday.

An internal U.N. probe of allegations that the U.N.-African Union UNAMID mission in Darfur was covering up crimes by Sudanese forces against civilians found that there was an under-reporting of crimes.

France will begin shipping arms to the Lebanese army in the first quarter of next year, a defense ministry source in Paris said Wednesday, as part of a $3-billion deal financed by Saudi Arabia.

The shipment will consist of combat and transport helicopters, armored vehicles, anti-tank missiles and heavy artillery, the source added.

Kataeb Party leader Amin Gemayel has reiterated that the most important form of legislation is parliament's election of a new head of state, blaming the presidential vacuum for the extension of the lawmakers' mandate.

“The first necessary legislation lies in the election of a president,” Gemayel said during a visit to Paris.

The son of the South Korean tycoon blamed for April's ferry disaster was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday for embezzlement, the first sentencing of any member of the reclusive billionaire family on charges linked to the sinking.

France on Tuesday adopted an anti-terrorism law which will slap a travel ban on anyone suspected of planning to wage jihad after the upper house Senate gave its final stamp of approval.

The law comes as authorities are increasingly worried about the number of French citizens traveling to fight in Iraq and Syria who could potentially come back and stage attacks in their home country.

Saudi Arabia and France inked on Tuesday in Riyadh a deal to provide the Lebanese army with $3 billion worth of French weapons, with Riyadh footing the bill.

The deal, first announced in December, comes as the Lebanese army is battling gunmen and jihadists, including from the Islamic State group, in the north and along its northeastern border with war-torn Syria.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called Tuesday for the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group to help rebels in Syria's second city Aleppo hold out against the Damascus regime.

Fabius said that the coalition should not battle IS to the exclusion of supporting rebels fighting President Bashar Assad's regime, which he said had deliberately fueled the jihadists' rise.

Visiting French President Francois Hollande brought a message of solidarity in the global fight against terrorism to Canada's parliament Monday, less than two weeks after a lone gunman stormed its halls.

"In the face of terrorism, there is no room for backing down, for concession, for weakness, because terrorism threatens the values on which both of our countries are based," Hollande said in a speech to Canadian lawmakers.