Syria's declared chemical weapons arsenal has been completely destroyed capping more than two years of work, a global arms watchdog said Tuesday, amid concern sarin gas is still being unleashed in the country's complex civil war.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) -- which oversaw the dangerous removal and elimination of Syria's avowed stockpile -- has for months been warning of the continued use of mustard, sarin and chlorine gas in the brutal conflict.

In the besieged Syrian town of Madaya, skeletal residents are braving landmines and snipers to scrounge for food despite a rare ceasefire deal that was meant to allow aid to enter.

"We've forgotten what bread tastes like," 27-year-old Mohamed told AFP from the town near the Lebanese border.

In the windows of his father's shop in coastal Syria, Ihab replaces bottles of the national tipple arak with vodka, hoping to please his growing customer base of Russian soldiers.

"In the past the demand was more for whiskey and arak, but with the Russians arriving in Syria, it's changed to vodka," Ihab, 32, says inside the "Crown" store in Latakia province.

Saudi Arabia's decision to break off relations with Iran should have no impact on peace efforts in Syria and Yemen, Riyadh's envoy to the United Nations said Monday.

"From our side, it should have no effect because we will continue to work very hard to support the peace efforts in Syria and Yemen," Saudi Ambassador Abdallah al-Mouallimi told reporters.

A fact-finding mission by the U.N. chemical weapons watchdog has found that some people in Syria may have been exposed to sarin or a sarin-like gas, according to a report released Monday.

The mission by the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said it was investigating 11 incidents of the use of toxic chemicals reported by the Syrian government.

The General Security arrested a Lebanese man for confessing to belonging to the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front, it said in a statement on Thursday.

The suspect admitted that he was tasked with forming a Nusra Front cell in Lebanon, recruiting members, and facilitating their passage to join the fight in Syria.

Jihadists in Iraq and Syria are holding over 3,000 Yazidi hostages, a Yazidi activist once imprisoned by the Islamic State said Wednesday.

"At this moment there are 3,400 people in detention who are Syrian or Iraqi," Nadia Murad Basee Taha told Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos during a visit to Athens.

Three months of Russian air strikes in Syria have killed more than 2,300 people, a third of them civilians, a monitoring group said on Wednesday.

Russia began conducting its air war in Syria on September 30 in support of embattled ally President Bashar Assad.

Regime forces seized a military base from rebels in southern Syria on Tuesday and were locked in heavy fighting in a nearby opposition stronghold, a monitor and state media said.

Government troops captured the Brigade 82 base outside Sheikh Miskeen in Daraa province and were clashing with rebels inside the town, state news agency SANA said.

A Syrian woman was arrested on charges of transferring funds to a terrorist group, announced the General Security on Tuesday.

The detainee confessed to providing financial and logistic support to the Abdullah Azzam Brigades through a member of the group.