A U.S. airstrike in northern Iraq has killed an Islamic State operative who was a person of interest in the 2012 Benghazi attack, the Pentagon said Monday.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said Ali Awni al-Harzi of Tunisia was killed in Mosul on June 15. 

Hundreds of refugees who fled fighting in the Syrian town of Tal Abyad to Turkey were returning home on Monday after a border gate reopened, a Turkish official said.

Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia ousted Islamic State (IS) jihadists from Tal Abyad after fighting that prompted some 23,000 Syrian refugees to flee into Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday urged the swift formation of a coalition government, warning he could call early elections should there be no agreement by mid-August.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its majority in June 7 elections for the first time since it came to power in 2002, in a major blow to Erdogan.

Turkish security forces detained four foreign journalists -- three from Italy, one from France -- as they tried to cross into Turkey from war-torn Syria, the official Anatolia news agency said Saturday.

They were arrested at the Mursitpinar border post close to the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane on Thursday, Anatolia said, adding that they now faced deportation.

Turkey on Saturday lashed out at Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel for recognizing the massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces during World War I as genocide.

Michel, the youngest prime minister in Belgium's history, said during a parliamentary session on Wednesday that the 1915 mass killings "must be viewed as a genocide."

Turkey paid homage Friday to former president and prime minister Suleyman Demirel, with a state funeral for a national political giant who died this week aged 90.

Demirel's coffin was placed in front of the parliament building where dignitaries including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu paid their respects.

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas has said that the crisis of Syrian refugees is a national cause that requires a political state of emergency to overcome its repercussions.

“The issue of the displaced Syrians should not cause political tension,” Derbas told An Nahar daily on Friday, a day after he referred a detailed report on the refugees to Prime Minister Tammam Salam and several cabinet ministers.

The U.S. is struggling to implement its training program for moderate Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State group, according to figures released Thursday by the Pentagon.

Only "100 to 200" fighters have actively begun training at U.S. sites in Jordan and Turkey, according to Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren, of the 5,000 forces the military says it wants to train over the year.

Turkey's newly elected parliament will meet for the first time next week, official media said Thursday, as political forces try to thrash out the country's first coalition in over a decade.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its overall majority in June 7 elections for the first time since it came to power in 2002, in a blow for its co-founder President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The U.N.'s refugee chief on Thursday urged the world including Western states to open up their borders and follow Turkey's example in hosting Syrian refugees.

Turkey, which has taken in some 1.8 million Syrian refugees since the conflict started in 2011, has repeatedly said that it has been left to shoulder a disproportionate burden as Western states stand by.