Spanish authorities arrested eight suspected members of a jihadist network Friday who allegedly called for terrorist attacks in Spain and tried to recruit for the Islamic State group.

In raids in the vicinity of Madrid and Barcelona, agents took into custody suspects who "called for the commission of terrorist acts in Spain inspired by techniques used in other countries," an interior ministry statement said.

A Lebanese who hails from northern Lebanon was killed in Syria while combating alongside the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front.

He was identified as Mustafa Khaled Seif, reported Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5), adding that he was killed in the Deir Ezzour region.

Syrian Kurdish fighters urged the U.S.-led coalition Friday to launch new air strikes on the Islamic State group as the jihadists brought in reinforcements for an attack in the northeast.

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) called on the coalition to carry out raids to prevent IS from seizing the key town of Tal Tamr in Hasakeh province.

Countries should seek dialogue with the Islamic State group in war-torn Syria to help aid workers gain access to areas under its control, the U.N. children's agency said Friday.

The militants have so far refused to talk with a range of United Nations agencies trying to send aid into areas under their control, making it difficult to help or even estimate the needs.

Nearly 13,000 Syrians, including 108 children, have been tortured to death in government prisons since the uprising began in March 2011, a monitoring group said Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 12,751 detainees in government detention centers had died from torture during the conflict.

Iraqi forces Friday battled Islamic State jihadists making what looked increasingly like a last stand in Tikrit, but the group responded by vowing to expand its "caliphate".

Thousands of fighters surrounded a few hundred IS holdouts, pounding their positions with helicopter and artillery strikes but treading carefully to avoid the thousands of bombs littering the city center.

Three British girls who crossed into Syria to join the Islamic State group were helped by a Syrian working as a spy for a country in the U.S.-led coalition, Turkey's foreign minister said Friday.

Meanwhile, video footage emerged purportedly showing the agent helping the girls into a car in southeastern Turkey on their way to Syria.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon David Hale expressed concern on Friday over the risk of spillover of terrorism and extremism from Syria.

“Tackling the threats will not be easy, but I am confident that, together, we can ensure that Daesh (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) will never find safe haven in Lebanon,” Hale told reporters after talks with Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil at the Bustros Palace.

Head of the Mustaqbal Movement MP Saad Hariri stressed that the March 14, 2005 “independence intifada” will be remembered as a day when the Lebanese achieved a victory in the name of “their freedom, sovereignty, and national dignity,” while remarking that “protecting tyranny is not the right way to combat terrorism.”

He said in a statement on the tenth anniversary of the uprising: “Dragging Lebanon towards neighboring civil wars is the easiest way to ruin the lives of the Lebanese, who will not accept to become a part of the Iranian empire.”

World leaders must put aside disagreements to end the four-year war in Syria that has exacted an "unconscionable" human cost, top U.N. officials said on Friday.

"We need world leaders to put aside their differences and use their influence to bring about meaningful change in Syria," the heads of several United Nations agencies said in a joint statement.