Syria's main western-backed opposition group has criticised al-Qaida-linked gunmen and their expanding influence in the country, saying the jihadis seek to establish an Islamic state.

Al-Qaida-linked gunmen have captured a Syrian town near the Turkish border after heavy fighting with a rebel group, an activist group said.

A Japanese journalist has been killed while covering Syria’s civil war.

Refugees are fleeing Syria in ever greater numbers, UN agencies said yesterday, as the conflict between President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and rebels intensifies.

Syrian fighter jets screamed through the sky over a rebel-held town, dropping bombs that levelled the better part of a poor neighbourhood and wounded scores of people, many of them women and children buried under piles of rubble.

Syrian rebels have bombarded a military air base in Aleppo using a tank captured from government troops as activists reported the regime has launched new raids against opposition fighters near the capital Damascus, killing dozens.