AMMAN (Reuters) – Syria’s opposition coalition will meet in Istanbul on May 23 to decide whether to participate in a U.S. and Russian-sponsored conference to try to end the Syrian civil war, coalition officials said on Sunday.

A session of the 60-member general assembly of the Islamist-dominated coalition will also elect a new head and discuss the fate of provisional prime minister Ghassan Hitto, who has come under heavy criticism for being too influenced by opposition figures with close links to Qatar, coalition insiders said.

AMMAN (Reuters) – It was too late when air raid sirens wailed at one of Syria’s most fortified military compounds. Israeli jets were already attacking the Hameh complex and civilian employees in nearby housing were scrambling for cover with their families.

Around Damascus the warplanes staged a series of raids in the early hours of Sunday including on President Bashar al-Assad’s air defenses, opposition and rebel sources said. But none had more devastating results than at Hameh, a high-walled site linked to his chemical and biological weapons program.

JERUSALEM/AMMAN (Reuters) – Israel played down weekend air strikes close to Damascus reported to have killed dozens of Syrian soldiers, saying they were not aimed at influencing its neighbour’s civil war but only at stopping Iranian missiles reaching Lebanese Hezbollah militants.

Oil prices spiked above $105 (67.5 pounds) a barrel, their highest in nearly a month, on Monday as the air strikes on Friday and Sunday prompted fears of a wider spill over of the two-year-old conflict in Syria that could affect Middle East oil exports.

JERUSALEM/AMMAN (Reuters) – Russia and China expressed alarm on Monday over the regional repercussions of two Israeli air raids on Syria, while Israel played down strikes which its officials said targeted Iranian missiles bound for Lebanese Hezbollah militants.

Oil prices spiked above $105 a barrel, their highest in nearly a month, on Monday morning as the air strikes on Friday and Sunday prompted fears of a wider spillover of Syria’s two-year-old civil war that could affect Middle East oil exports.

AMMAN (Reuters) – The growing power of Islamist fighters in southern Syria is causing alarm in neighboring Jordan, which backs rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad but fears those linked to al Qaeda.

Similar concerns among Syria’s other neighbors, including Turkey and Israel, are complicating an already disjointed world response to the bloody turmoil at the heart of the Middle East.

AMMAN (Reuters) – A Syrian air strike on a headquarters of a rebel brigade along the Turkish border killed at least five people, including children, and wounded dozens more on Tuesday, opposition activists said.

The attack targeted buildings belonging to the Ahrar al-Sham, a Salafist Islamist rebel unit fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the activists said. A Turkish aid worker said the strike also hit a warehouse on the Syrian side of the border used by aid groups.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Fighting erupted in Damascus on Sunday near a complex linked to Syria’s chemical weapons programme, on the third day of an offensive by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces aimed at driving rebels from main sectors of the capital, activists said.

The fighting occurred near the Scientific Studies and Research Centre on the foothills of Qasioun Mountain in the northern Barzeh district, opposition sources said from Damascus.

AMMAN (Reuters) – At least 109 people have been documented as killed and up to 400 more are likely to have died in an almost week-long offensive by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on a rebellious Damascus suburb, opposition activists said.

If the accounts are confirmed, the killings in the mainly Sunni Muslim suburb of Jdeidet al-Fadel would amount to one of bloodiest episodes of the two-year-old uprising against Assad. Many of the dead were civilians, the activists said.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian troops and Lebanese Shi’ite militias attacked rebel-held areas on the two countries’ border on Sunday, in the heaviest clashes of Syria’s civil war in the strategic region, Lebanese and Syrian sources said.

At least two towns held by Sunni Islamist rebels in the al-Qusair region near the Orontes River were overrun after sectarian clashes escalated early last week, threatening to bring in Iranian-backed Hezbollah openly into the battle, the sources said.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian troops and Lebanese Shi’ite militias attacked rebel-held areas on the two countries’ border on Sunday, in the heaviest clashes of Syria’s civil war in the strategic region, Lebanese and Syrian sources said.

At least two towns held by Sunni Islamist rebels in the al-Qusair region near the Orontes River were overrun after sectarian clashes escalated early last week, threatening to bring in Iranian-backed Hezbollah openly into the battle, the sources said.