Talks in Moscow between the Syrian government and members of the domestic opposition tolerated by President Bashar Assad broke up on Friday with no progress made towards ending the war.

Activists among the fractious opposition groups said they had made steps towards agreeing a common position among themselves but failed to make any headway in discussions with representatives of the Assad regime.

Speaker Nabih stressed on Friday that dialogue between the rival two parties al-Mustaqbal movement and Hizbullah will continue, pointing out that the upcoming session will remain on time.

“Dialogue will continue and will continue to achieve Lebanon's best interest,” Berri said.

A group of Syrian opposition figures is seeking to form an alternative to the National Coalition body and open negotiations with President Bashar Assad to end their country's conflict.

The "National Syrian Democratic Conference" is expected to take place in Cairo in early May and bring together some 150 opposition figures living in Syria and abroad, organizers say.

Bosnian prosecutors on Friday charged four men suspected of planning to join the Islamic State group in Syria and organizing travel to that country.

The four, arrested in February, face charges of "illegal formation and joining foreign paramilitary and para-police groups," the national prosecutor's office said.

The Palestinian leadership has rejected the idea of joining the conflict in Syria's Yarmuk camp, apparently ruling out involvement in a joint military operation to expel the Islamic State group.

The position was made clear in a statement released late Thursday by the Palestine Liberation Organization from its headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Two Syrians were arrested in the eastern Bekaa region for belonging to a terrorist group, reported the National News Agency.

It said that the Army Intelligence arrested them in al-Labweh for being affiliated to the al-Nusra Front.

A Turkish court on Friday placed under arrest pending trial 17 soldiers charged in a hugely controversial case over the interception last year of a consignment that allegedly contained arms bound for Syria.

The 17 have been charged with membership of a terrorist organization and working on behalf of the "parallel state", common official shorthand for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's arch enemy the U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.

Jihadist fighters from the Islamic State group are holding hostage at least 50 civilians, almost half of them women, seized in a raid on a village in central Syria, a monitor said.

They were kidnapped from the village of Mabujeh in Hama province on March 31, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

An experienced war photographer has vowed to fight the Japanese government after being issued a passport that specifically bars him from going to violence-wracked Iraq and Syria.

Yuichi Sugimoto, who has been reporting from conflict zones for 20 years, had his passport confiscated in February after he refused government requests to abandon a planned trip to a Syrian refugee camp.

The special envoy of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Morteza Sarmadi, met during a short visit to Lebanon Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, stressing that the presidential stalemate in Lebanon could only be resolved by the Lebanese.

“Such a local matter could only be resolved by the rival parties and the key issue is consensus among the Lebanese,” Sarmadi said in an interview published in As Safir newspaper published on Friday.