Turkey said a US-led coalition will soon launch a “comprehensive battle” against Islamic State militants from Turkish air bases, but Syria said any military action not co-ordinated with Damascus would breach its sovereignty.

Talks between representatives of the Syrian government and some mainstream members of the opposition concluded yesterday in Moscow with no sign of progress towards ending a four-year-old conflict that has killed more than 220,000 people.

Kurdish forces in Iraq are investigating two other possible chemical weapons attacks by the Islamic State group, a top official has said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has voiced his support for air strikes carried out by the United States and Arab allies on Islamic State militants in Syria.

Syria’s conflict was sparked by an act of brutality — the detention and torture of schoolchildren who spray- painted anti-government graffiti in a southern city. In the three years since, the civil war has evolved into one of the most savage conflicts in decades.

Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama has rejected a request from the United States for the tiny impoverished Balkan nation to host the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile.

Syria has completed destruction of critical equipment for producing chemical weapons and filling munitions with poison gas, an official at the global chemical weapons watchdog said today.

International inspectors began destroying Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons and the machinery used to create it, a United Nations official said on Sunday.

The inspectors responsible for tracking down Syria’s chemical arms stockpile and verifying its destruction plan to start work there by Tuesday. They will face their tightest deadlines ever and work right in the heart of a war zone, according to a draft decision.

Syria has said it accepts Russia’s proposal to place its chemical weapons under international control for subsequent dismantling.

Russia says it will push Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control.

President Barack Obama and French president Francois Hollande have said they are committed to a political solution in Syria even as they prepare for potential military strikes.

UN chemical weapons experts have visited a Damascus suburb for a new tour of areas struck by poison gas, as Western powers began laying the groundwork for a possible punitive strike.

The Syrian government has agreed to a conference on the country’s future proposed by Russia and the United States, Russia’s foreign ministry said today.

Syria’s information minister has said Damascus needs more details about a proposed US-Russian initiative before it decides whether to attend.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has asked Russian president Vladimir Putin for a tougher stance on Syria at a time when Israeli air strikes against the Middle Eastern nation have added an unpredictable factor to the talks.

The Obama administration is rethinking its opposition to arming the rebels who have been locked in a civil war with the Syrian regime for more than two years, defence secretary Chuck Hagel said last night, becoming the first top US official to publicly acknowledge the reassessment.

Syrian opposition groups called yesterday for international action after the Obama administration said US intelligence indicates President Bashar Assad’s regime has used chemical weapons.

Syrian authorities have beefed up security measures in Damascus as rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad urged supporters to mark the second anniversary of the country’s uprising by stepping up attacks against the regime.

Syria threatened today to retaliate for an Israeli air strike and its ally Iran said there will be repercussions over the attack.

More than 100 civilians have been killed in a new “massacre” in Syria, a watchdog said, as Russia slammed the United States for blaming deadly blasts at a university campus on the Damascus regime.

France’s president has vowed his country will stand against instability in Lebanon, two weeks after the assassination of a senior Lebanese intelligence official sparked clashes between pro- and anti-Syrian groups.

A Syrian passenger plane intercepted by Turkey’s air force was carrying military communications equipment, Turkish media has reported as Damascus branded the incident piracy amid growing tensions between the two countries.

Turkish artillery fired towards Syria for a fifth day in a row today, minutes after a Syrian shell landed on Turkish territory.

A Syrian warplane crashed in flames in eastern Syria in disputed circumstances yesterday as President Bashar al-Assad’s forces pursued their drive to quell rebels in Aleppo and elsewhere.

Dozens of government tanks have converged on Syria’s largest city as president Bashar Assad marshalled his forces to stamp out a five-day rebel fight to wrest Aleppo from the regime’s grasp.

Syria acknowledged for the first time that it had chemical and biological weapons, saying they could be used if the country faced foreign intervention.

Syrian intelligence agencies are running torture centres across the country where detainees are beaten with batons and cables, burned with acid, sexually assaulted, and their fingernails torn out and later forced fed to them, Human Rights Watch said in a report.

Three Syrian attack helicopters which have been refurbished in Russia will be sent back to Syria, Russian defence officials have reportedly said.

Turkey’s president has said his country will take “necessary” but unspecified action against Syria, a day after Damascus said it had brought down a Turkish military plane that had entered its airspace.

Thirteen bound corpses, many apparently shot execution-style, have been discovered in eastern Syria, days after the massacre of more than 100 people provoked international outrage.

Two people were killed and 15 others injured in street battles between pro- and anti-Syrian groups in the Lebanese capital overnight as the spiralling conflict in neighbouring Syria spilled across the border.

Syrian troops have shelled and raided opposition strongholds nationwide, activists said, prompting an urgent appeal by international envoy Kofi Annan to the Syrian regime to halt violence “without conditions” and give his truce plan a chance.

About 1,000 people have been killed by Syrian government forces in the last eight days, according to the country’s main opposition group.

A UN-brokered plan to stop the bloodshed in Syria has effectively collapsed after President Bashar Assad's government raised new, last-minute demands that the country's largest rebel group swiftly rejected.

A coalition of more than 70 partners, including the United States, has pledged to send millions of dollars and communications equipment to Syria’s opposition groups.

Shells slammed into the central Syrian city of Homs today, killing more than two dozen people, activists said, as Syria’s government defied ceasefire demands and international efforts to boost the rebels.

Dozens of countries today sought to set conditions for a new Syria, pushing for tighter sanctions and diplomatic pressure to further isolate president Bashar Assad, while urging the opposition to offer a democratic alternative to his regime.

More than a dozen people died in clashes across Syria yesterday, opposition activists said, as a UN Security Council call for an immediate end to the fighting fell on deaf ears.

China's special envoy to Syria is expected to press authorities for a ceasefire even as Beijing remains firmly opposed to any foreign intervention in the conflict.

Leading Republican senator John McCain has urged the United States to launch airstrikes against Syrian president Bashar Assad's regime to force him out of power.

The UK has withdrawn its diplomatic staff from Syria and closed the embassy in Damascus on security grounds, Foreign Secretary William Hague has announced.

The Syrian regime showed a new determination to crush its opponents, vowing to “cleanse” a rebel-held district in the besieged central city of Homs after nearly four weeks of shelling.

Russia has urged the United Nations to send a special envoy to Syria to help co-ordinate security issues and the delivery of humanitarian assistance.