Head of al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc MP Fouad Saniora filed a complaint against Arab Tawhid Party leader and former minister Wiam Wahhab over remarks accusing the lawmaker of belonging to the “Israeli project” in the region.

The state-run National News Agency reported on Thursday that Saniora briefed General Prosecutor Samir Hammoud on the context of Wahhab's statements during a televised interview, stressing that he reserves the right to file a lawsuit against the former minister.

Representatives of Syrian President Bashar Assad and opposition figures will meet for peace talks in Moscow on April 6, three months after a meeting ended without concrete results, a Russian foreign ministry spokesman told Agence France-Presse.

The ministry spokesman did not specify which opposition representatives and officials from Assad's government would attend the talks.

A former U.S. Air Force mechanic pleaded not guilty in New York on Wednesday to attempting to support extremists fighting in Syria, and could face trial as early as July.

Tairod Pugh, 47, appeared before federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis, the burly Muslim convert standing with his hands behind his back, dressed in a navy short-sleeved shirt and khaki trousers.

Two Syrian gunmen killed a man Wednesday outside his home in the Bekaa border town of Arsal.

“Young man Ali Ezzeddine, aka Ali Badriyeh, was killed outside his house in the town of Arsal,” state-run National News Agency reported.

Syria's military said Wednesday it downed an American drone over suspicions it was spying, in what would be its first attack on an aircraft in the U.S.-led coalition battling jihadists.

A military source, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the drone was not immediately identified as being American but was shot down as a hostile aircraft.

A top U.S. envoy has assured Turkey that Washington is seeking a settlement to the conflict in Syria that excludes President Bashar Assad, the U.S. embassy said on Wednesday.

John Allen, who is coordinating the international coalition against the Islamic State group, held talks with Turkish foreign ministry undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu on Tuesday in Ankara on "our shared efforts to degrade and defeat ISIL," the embassy said, using an alternative name for IS.

The World Health Organization said Tuesday the situation in war-ravaged Syria is "very worrying", and warned its aid programme could be disrupted because of a shortage of donor funds.

"Ongoing developments have very negative effects on the public health, negatively affecting all health programs," the U.N. agency's Ala Alwan told Agence France Presse in Abu Dhabi.

Lebanese security and judicial agencies had been busy in the past days investigating a cargo for the Syrian regime, which was dubbed as “nuclear equipment” but turned out to be office material, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The daily said that the apparatuses launched a probe when the manifest of several containers that reached Beirut Port said they included nuclear material.

Syrian and Iraqi Christians have pleaded for more international assistance from new homes in Lebanon where they recently arrived after fleeing attack by militants from the Islamic State group.

They spoke on Tuesday in two Beirut churches where they lined up to receive food baskets and other humanitarian assistance from a non-profit organization called In Defense of Christians (IDC), whose mission is to protect Christians in the Middle East.

Since the Syrian civil war erupted four years ago, tens of thousands of refugees have poured into the southern Turkish port town of Mersin, fearing they may never return home and yearning for a better life.

Between 200,000-350,000 Syrian refugees are now estimated to live in the workaday Mediterranean city, swelling its population of around one million by about a quarter.