The French, German and Russian foreign ministers on Monday held closed-door talks in Paris over the Ukraine crisis, a German foreign ministry official said.

There were however no details of the discussions between France's Laurent Fabius, Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Sergei Lavrov of Russia after a giant international conference on fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq.

The world's top diplomats pledged Monday to support Iraq in its fight against Islamic State militants by "any means necessary," including "appropriate military assistance," as leaders stressed the urgency of the crisis.

Representatives from around 30 countries and international organizations, including the United States, Russia and China, gathered in Paris as the brutal beheading over the weekend of a third Western hostage focused participants' minds.

French planes carried out their first reconnaissance flights over Iraq on Monday in support of the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State jihadists.

An AFP correspondent saw two French Rafale fighter jets equipped with high-precision cameras take off from the Al-Dhafra base in the United Arab Emirates during a visit by French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

Who strikes and where? Who provides the weapons? Who provides the intelligence? And who provides the cash?

The international conference in Paris on Monday that gathers some 20 countries from the anti-Islamic State coalition will seek to divide up the roles between nations with often diverging interests.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas will meet his French counterpart Francois Hollande in Paris on Friday, ahead of a key address to the United Nations, his spokesman said.

Abbas will spend two days in Paris before heading to New York, where he will attend the U.N. General Assembly, which opens on September 24, his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP on Sunday.

The deeply unpopular government of embattled French President Francois Hollande faces a parliamentary confidence vote on Tuesday, with the country gripped by a crippling political and economic crisis.

In what promises to be a crunch week for under-fire Hollande -- whom two-thirds of French voters want to resign, according to a recent poll -- he will also face a grilling from reporters at a rare news conference on Thursday.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil is scheduled to attend a meeting in Paris on Monday on the situation in Iraq, reported the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Sunday.

Sources in France told the daily that he will hold talks in Paris with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss the situation in Lebanon.

Around 930 French citizens or residents, including at least 60 women, are either actively engaged in jihad in Iraq and Syria or are planning to go there, the interior minister said Sunday.

In an interview with Le Journal de Dimanche weekly, Bernard Cazeneuve said: "930 French citizens or foreigners usually resident in France are today involved in jihad in Iraq and Syria."

French intelligence services assisted Washington in the operation that killed the commander of Somalia's Shebab militant group earlier this month, local media reported Saturday.

"France and President (Francois Hollande) supported with intelligence and coordination" a U.S. air strike that killed Ahmed Godane, the commander of the Islamist faction responsible for a string of deadly attacks throughout Somalia, the weekly Le Point magazine said.

President Francois Hollande said during a visit to Baghdad Friday that France is ready to step up military assistance for Iraq, as global efforts intensified to defeat Islamic State jihadists.

It was the highest-profile visit to Iraq since IS-led militants overran large parts of the country in June and sparked international concern over an expanding jihadist threat.