BEIRUT (Reuters) – The United States chided Russia for sending missiles to the Syrian government as plans for a peace conference promoted by Washington and Moscow were hit by diplomatic rifts over its scope and purpose.

Sectarian bloodshed in neighboring Iraq during Friday prayers, a hacking attack on a Western newspaper by sympathizers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and defiant comments by a rebel commander filmed eating a slain soldier’s flesh were all reminders of how the two-year-old civil war is metastising.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The United States chided Russia for sending missiles to the Syrian government as plans for a peace conference promoted by Washington and Moscow were hit by diplomatic rifts over its scope and purpose.

Sectarian bloodshed in neighbouring Iraq during Friday prayers, a hacking attack on a Western newspaper by sympathisers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and defiant comments by a rebel commander filmed eating a slain soldier’s flesh were all reminders of how the two-year-old civil war is metastising.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian rebel commander who rose to international notoriety for footage of him cutting out and eating the organ of a slain soldier said he was willing to face trial for his actions if President Bashar al-Assad was also sent to court.

A video released on Friday showed the commander in Syria’s central Homs province, known as Abu Sakkar, praying in a field and taking questions from a cameraman.

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russia said on Saturday there was disagreement over who should represent the opposition in a Syrian peace process, only days after Moscow and Washington announced a joint effort to bring government and rebels to an international conference.

The dispute bodes ill for a civil war in which more than 70,000 people, mostly civilians, have died, and that has left foreign powers looking increasingly helpless.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Syria would respond to Israeli raids around Damascus by giving his group sophisticated new weapons, the outcome Israel said its attack was launched to avert.

“If the aim of your attack was to prevent the strengthening of the resistance’s capabilities, then Syria will give the resistance sophisticated weapons the like of which it hasn’t seen before,” he said in a televised speech on Thursday.

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russia and the United States agreed to seek new peace talks with both sides to end Syria’s civil war, but opposition leaders were skeptical on Wednesday of an initiative they fear might let President Bashar al-Assad to cling to power.

Visiting Moscow after Israel bombed targets near Damascus and as President Barack Obama faces renewed calls to arm the rebels, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russia had agreed to try to arrange a conference as early as this month.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Leaders of Syria’s political and armed opposition said on Wednesday they were skeptical of a plan by the United States and Russia to bring together the warring sides in their country’s two-year conflict for a peace conference.

A day after the announcement by Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow of plans for a peace conference, opposition figures said they were still reluctant to talk with President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russia and the United States have agreed to bury their differences over Syria and hold urgent international talks to find a settlement that can end the carnage of a civil war that is inflaming the entire Middle East.

Visiting Moscow after Israel bombed targets near Damascus and as President Barack Obama faces new calls to arm the rebels, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russia had agreed to try to arrange a conference as early as this month involving both President Bashar al-Assad’s government and his opponents.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hundreds of Sunni Muslim families fled the Syrian coastal town of Banias on Saturday after fighters loyal to President Bashar al-Assad killed at least 62 people overnight and left bloodied and burned corpses piled in the streets, activists said.

A pro-opposition monitoring group posted a video online showing the mutilated bodies of 10 people it said were killed in a southern district of Banias, half of them children.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hundreds of Sunni Muslim families fled Syria’s coastal town of Banias on Saturday, fearing further sectarian violence after fighters loyal to President Bashar al-Assad killed dozens of people overnight, according to activists.

The activists said the killings in the Ras al-Nabaa district of Banias took place two days after state forces and pro-Assad militias killed at least 50 Sunnis in the nearby village of Baida.