In a surprise meeting with Syria’s foreign minister, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged his support on Monday for Syrian President Bashar Assad and called on all Middle East nations to join forces to fight Daesh militants.

The war in Syria, which began with protests in March 2011, has killed more than 220,000 people. Russia, which has traditionally strong ties to Syria, has been seen as a key to a peaceful solution and has previously rebuffed suggestions that Assad’s resignation could help end the war.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al Moallem held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday then was whisked to the Kremlin to meet with Putin.

Russian news agencies quoted Putin as telling the Syrian envoy that Russia’s “policy to support Syria, the Syrian leadership and the Syrian people remains unchanged.”

Putin also urged other Middle East countries to help Syria fight the armed militant factions that now control parts of the Syrian capital and large parts of the city’s suburbs.

Putin said Moscow’s contacts with the countries in the region, including with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, “show that everyone wants to contribute to fight this evil,” he said referring to Daesh militants.

He exhorted all nations in the region, whatever their relations with Syria are, to “pool their efforts together” to fight the militants.

British police successfully foiled a plot to explode a pressure cooker bomb at a parade in London Saturday, it has been confirmed.

According to The Sun newspaper, a suicide plot was intended to strike an Armed Forces Day parade targeting soldiers from the unit of Lee Rigby, a British soldier murdered by Islamic extremists on a London street in 2013. The attack reportedly failed, however, after one of its chief architects in Syria unwittingly recruited an undercover investigator from the newspaper to help carry it out.

It is alleged that a leading Islamic State group figure, identified as Junaid Hussain, who was originally from Birmingham, U.K, told the investigator: “It will be big. We will hit the kuffar (unbelievers) hard InshAllah. Hit their soldiers in their own land. InshAllah. Soldiers that served in Iraq and Afghanistan will be present. Jump in the crowd and detonate the bomb.

“They think they can kill Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan then come back to the U.K. and be safe. We’ll hit them hard InshAllah,” he is reported as saying.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “The police, together with our security partners, remain alert to terrorist threats that may manifest here or where individuals overseas may seek to direct or inspire others to commit attacks in and against the U.K.

“It is always helpful when journalists share with us information, as The Sun did in this case, that could indicate terrorist or criminal activity.

“While the UK threat level from international terrorism remains severe, we would like to reassure the public that we constantly review security plans for public events, taking into account specific intelligence and the wider threat.

“Our priority is the safety and security for all those attending or involved, the public are encouraged to continue with their plans to attend or take part in events as normal. We would also like to reiterate our long-standing advice to remain vigilant and alert.

The terror threat level in the U.K. remains unchanged at “severe”, following Friday’s three terror attacks in Tunisia, France and Kuwait.

Speaking after a meeting of a high-level security committee, British Prime Minister David Cameron vowed that “terrorists will not succeed. ”

At least 65 people are now known to have died in three terror attacks on three continents, all linked directly or indirectly with ISIS. The group has warned it will carry out attacks throughout the Holy month of Ramadan, which lasts until July 18.

Police say they have arrested a Pakistani man suspected of helping organize the 2009 attack on a market in Peshawar that killed more than 100 people, the latest arrest in a decade-long investigation into an Italy-based terror network with ties to al Qaida.

State police said in a statement Friday that the suspect, identified as a member of al Qaida, was arrested late Thursday at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport as he arrived on a flight from Islamabad.

On April 24, Italy’s anti-terrorism police announced they had arrested nine people and issued arrest warrants for another nine as part of a probe into the network. Prosecutors said its members had plotted a 2010 attack on the Vatican that was never carried out.

French media are reporting that there has been an explosion at a factory near Grenoble.

A body of a decapitated man was found close to the entrance to Air Products and his head was was found nearby. A flag of the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) has also been found. One man has been arrested.

Police are currently investigating.

French authorities questioned Wednesday two women and a man who have recently returned from Syria.

The three French nationals were deported by the Turkish government after trying to illegally cross from Syria into Turkey.

They face charges of joining “terrorist groups” and fighting alongside the ISIS in northern Syria.

According to media reports, the suspects have been in Syria for nearly three months before escaping the war-torn country and returning home.

Hundreds of French nationals have reportedly joined the ranks of the IS terrorist group in Syria and Iraq.

More than 1,400 French citizens traveled or plan to travel to Syria and Iraq, to ​​join the ISIS. At least 100 of them were killed while fighting in IS ranks.

A Palestinian convicted for involvement in the abduction and murder of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni in 2011, reportedly escaped recently from Gaza to Syria in order to join Islamic State while on leave from prison to visit his family for the month of Ramadan.

Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds reported that it was unclear whether Mahmoud al-Salfiti left Gaza using tunnels or crossed through the Rafah border using a fake identity.

A Hamas-run court sentenced him to a life sentence in 2012 for his involvement in the killing of Arrigoni.

Arrigoni, a pro-Palestinian activist, was found strangled in an abandoned house in 2011 after a jihadi Salafi group aligned with al-Qaida abducted him and threatened to execute him unless Salafi leader Hisham al-Saidni was freed.

Arrigoni had lived in Gaza since arriving in 2008 aboard a humanitarian aid boat that Israel had admitted to the Strip.