Syria News

Damascus - Syria said Monday it will hold presidential elections expected to return President Bashar al-Assad to office on June 3, despite a civil war that has killed more than 150,000 people.

- Syria's President Bashar al-Assad paid an Easter Sunday visit to a historic Christian town newly recaptured from jihadist-backed rebels as opposition fighters counter-attacked his forces in a key battleground city.

France claims it has "information" which indicates that the Assad government is continuing to use chemical weapons against rebel groups in Syria. Apparently they have carried out nine such attacks in the past two months.

The United Nations has said that the Syrian regimes military blockade of the Palestinian Yarmouk camp, situated on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, could see to the starvation of up to 20,000 of its inhabitants.

Paris - France has "information" but no firm proof that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime is still using chemical weapons, President Francois Hollande said Sunday.

According to the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Syria has shipped out 80% of its declared chemical weapons.

Ankara - One of the four French hostages freed after 10 months in captivity in Syria said Saturday he was "very happy to be free", Turkey's Dogan News Agency reported.

Paris - Four French journalists taken hostage in Syria last year were freed after a 10-month ordeal in the world's most dangerous country for the media.

Dubai - Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has called for unity in a new interview amid widening divisions with a rival jihadist organisation rooted in the Syrian civil war.

Damascus - Syrian army forces advanced around rebel-held areas of the Old City of Homs, as a car bomb hit a regime-controlled part of the city, killing 14 people.