At least 14 civilians, nearly half of them children, were killed on Friday in air strikes on a flashpoint town in central Syria, a monitoring group said.

Six children and five women were among those killed in the aerial attack on Talbisseh in Homs province, according to Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Top diplomats from Russia, the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Turkey on Friday failed to make any major breakthrough on how to end the Syrian conflict, with the sides sharply at odds on the future of Bashar Assad.

But Moscow did seem to make progress with getting some more regional players on side, announcing with Jordan that the two countries would begin to "coordinate" their air operations over Syria. 

Zaina Erhaim, the Syrian recipient of the Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism, said Thursday she hopes her work can convey "the human side" of the horrific conflict.

"I'm not a war zone reporter. I wouldn't be there if it was not my home country," she said ahead of accepting the award from Reporters Without Borders, Agence France-Presse and Global Media Forum, a journalist training organization.

At least 13 people including medical staff were killed when Russian warplanes struck a field hospital in northwestern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday.

"Thirteen people were killed in Russian air strikes on Tuesday on a field clinic in the town of Sarmin, including a physiotherapist, a guard, and civil defense member," the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Any political transition period in war-torn Syria must be part of a "formula" which guarantees the departure as soon as possible of President Bashar Assad, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Wednesday.

"The focus should not be on a transition period with Assad, but on a formula that will see him go and such formula should be implemented as soon as possible," he said at a press conference.

Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad traveled to Moscow for his first known foreign trip since the conflict broke out in his country in 2011, holding key talks on the crisis with President Vladimir Putin.

Assad, who last visited Russia in 2008, used the surprise visit on Tuesday evening to thank Putin for launching a campaign of air strikes in Syria last month, with the two leaders agreeing that military operations must be followed by political steps.

Canada's prime minister-elect Justin Trudeau said Tuesday he told U.S. President Barack Obama that Canadian fighter jets would withdraw from fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

But he gave no timeline.

The navy thwarted on Wednesday an attempt to illegally smuggle a number of migrants from Lebanon, announced the army in a statement.

It said that 53 people were arrested off the coast of the northern city of Tripoli as they attempted to illegally depart the country in a Lebanese boat that can support no more than 15 people.

Tens of thousands have fled new regime offensives in Syria, the U.N. said Tuesday, as Russian air strikes were reported to have so far killed 370 people, many of them civilians.

The mass exodus was focused south of Syria's second city Aleppo, one of five areas where regime troops have launched renewed attacks since Russia began its air war on September 30.

Russian air strikes in Syria have killed 370 people since they began on September 30, around a third of them civilians, a monitoring group said Tuesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 243 rebel fighters had been killed, among them 52 from the Islamic State group, along with 127 civilians.