The Permanent Military Tribunal reportedly decided to separate the trial of former pro-Syrian Information Minister Michel Samaha from that of Syrian security chief General Ali Mamlouk.

According to al-Akhbar newspaper published on Saturday, Samaha will stand trial on April 20.

A group of London teenage girls barred from travelling abroad attend the same school as three others who are thought to have gone to Syria, the High Court has heard.

Last week High Court judge Anthony Hayden barred five teenage girls from going overseas due to concerns they too would flee to Syria to join Islamist fighters.

Islamist rebels made fresh advances Friday on the edges of Idlib city in northwest Syria, after fierce clashes that have left dozens of dead, a monitoring group said.

"The fighters have advanced on the northwestern and southeastern sides of the city," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Perched on a makeshift bench taking turns with a sniper rifle, the Syrian army's top markswomen await their "prey" on the front line in east Damascus.

Sergeant Rim, 20, and Chief Sergeant Samar, 21, belong to the First Women's Commando Brigade of the Republican Guard, an elite unit stationed on some of the most dangerous battlegrounds on the outskirts of the Syrian capital. 

Israel on Friday charged a Druze resident of the occupied Golan Heights with spying for Syria, the Shin Bet internal security service and police said.

A Shin Bet statement said that Sudki Sleiman Makat from the border village of Majdal Shams was charged with espionage, having contact with a foreign agent and passing information to the enemy in time of war.

Turkey's army chief General Necdet Ozel and top commanders have for the first time visited the new location of a historic tomb inside Syrian territory, the military said on Friday.

Army chief of staff Ozel and the land and air forces commanders on Thursday went inside Syria to visit the Turkish soldiers guarding the tomb of Suleyman Shah, grandfather of the Ottoman empire's founder Osman I.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil reportedly handed over to the Arab League general secretariat a publication to confirm Lebanon's decision to hold onto its dissociation policy and calling for the formation of a joint Arab military force.

He stressed in his document, according to As Safir newspaper, that Lebanon refuses to intrude in the differences between Arab countries.

Ross Mountain, the U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, has warned that the needs of the region's states, including Lebanon, are growing as result of the war in Syria, hoping that donor countries would assist the country at the upcoming conference in Kuwait.

He also revealed that the International Support Group for Lebanon could meet in Beirut this year.

The U.S. military dropped 60,000 leaflets on the Islamic State group's de facto capital in Syria showing a grisly depiction of extremist recruits being fed into a meat grinder, the Pentagon said Thursday.

An F-15E fighter jet last week unloaded a canister containing the graphic leaflets on the northern city of Raqa, the latest in an effort by a U.S.-led coalition to undermine the IS extremists' own extensive propaganda and recruiting efforts.

Syrian President Bashar Assad is open to dialogue with the United States, the leader said in an interview with U.S. television network CBS Thursday.

Assad said such dialogue would need to be based on "mutual respect," but that so far there has been no contact from the Americans.