Syria’s President Bashar Assad said his opponents have “used up all their tools” and failed to overthrow his regime. The remarks came as Western-backed Syrian opposition figures gathered in Turkey for talks on electing a new leadership.

Activist preacher Moaz al-Khatib is the only candidate to head a new Syrian opposition umbrella group which factions trying to bring down president Bashar al Assad agreed to form yesterday, a delegate involved in choosing the leader said.

The leadership of Syria’s main opposition bloc in exile, the Syrian National Council, has become an all-male affair after elections failed to promote a single woman to a decision-making group of 41.

From his old school in Indonesia to a Japanese beach town that happens to share his name, people around the world have cheered Barack Obama’s re-election as US president today.

The government of Bashar al-Assad has declared victory in a hard-fought battle for Syria’s capital Damascus, and pounded rebels who control parts of the country’s largest city Aleppo.

The head of a prominent Syrian opposition group has strongly criticised Russia’s position on the country’s conflict during a visit to Moscow.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has suggested ending his country’s conflict on a step-by-step basis, starting with districts that have suffered the worst violence, international mediator Kofi Annan has said.

Syrian opposition groups struggled to form a united leadership at a meeting which exposed vast disagreements that have prevented them from effectively leading the uprising against President Bashar Assad.

Turkey’s military says it scrambled fighter jets to its border on Saturday after Syrian helicopters flew too close to the frontier.

The new head of Syria’s main opposition group has called for mass defections from a regime struggling to survive by carrying out massacres, as the death toll in the uprising topped 14,000.

Syrian government forces pounded areas in the central province of Homs today in a renewed push to regain control of rebel-held territories, and activists said at least 38 people were killed in shelling there over the past 24 hours.

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

Syrian rebels say they are making a “tactical retreat” from the besieged district of Baba Amr in Homs because of worsening humanitarian conditions.

Western and Arab countries responded with outrage yesterday after Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have backed an Arab plan urging Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to give up power.

Syria's two largest opposition groups have signed an agreement on setting up a democracy after President Bashar Assad's regime falls, opposition figures said today.

Syrian troops have been accused of massacring an entire village with rockets, machine guns and tanks.

A GENERAL strike was observed yesterday in several regions of Syria to step up the pressure on the regime, activists said, as fears grew of an “invasion” of the besieged protest hub of Homs.

SYRIA’S opposition yesterday urged the Arab League to stand strong against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime as the United Nations said its crackdown on dissent has left more than 3,500 people dead.

Syrian dissidents meeting in Turkey today formally announced the creation of a broad-based council designed to overthrow President Bashar Assad’s regime in what appeared to be the most serious step yet to unify a fragmented opposition.