An alliance of Syrian rebel forces seized a key army base in the south of the country on Tuesday in a new setback for the regime's embattled troops.

The Southern Front alliance took full control of the 52nd Brigade base in Daraa province after 24 hours of fierce clashes, a spokesman for the group told AFP.

Syria's brutal conflict has left more than 230,000 people dead including almost 11,500 children since it broke out in 2011, a monitoring group said Tuesday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had documented the deaths of 230,618 people.

A French mother took the government to court on Tuesday for failing to stop her teenage son from leaving the country to join jihadists in Syria.

The boy, identified only as "B", was 16 when he left with three others from the town of Nice in southern France on December 27, 2013, giving no warning to his family. 

Former President Michel Suleiman on Tuesday severely criticized the Free Patriotic Movement and Hizbullah without naming them for seeking to “paralyze” the cabinet and dragging the war in neighboring Syria to Lebanon.

“It is not acceptable to impose conditions on the cabinet,” Suleiman said following talks with a delegation from al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc at his residence in Yarze.

Hizbullah repelled Tuesday an attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on the outskirts of the north Bekaa border areas of al-Qaa and Ras Baalbek near Syria's border.

The party's media outlets reported that fighters from Hizbullah thwarted an assault by ISIL jihadists at dawn on al-Mazbaha hilltop between Jouseih and al-Qaa.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has advised Christian parties not to waste historic opportunities and to agree on a consensual candidate other than Free Patriotic Movement chief Michel Aoun and Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are in a dispute over the situation in Yemen, so there won't be any mediator to help Lebanese MPs elect a new president, Jumblat said in remarks published on Tuesday.

U.S. authorities on Monday released video footage that shows the fatal shooting by law enforcement of a black Muslim man in Boston who was accused of planning to behead police officers.

The grainy video was filmed by a surveillance camera at a Burger King about 50 yards (meters) from where the confrontation with Usaamah Rahim, a 26-year-old security guard, took place in a parking lot last week.

The U.S. Army's official website was hacked Monday with messages denouncing Washington's training of rebel fighters inside Syria, but no data was stolen, officials said.

As a result of the hacking, the Army decided to temporarily shut down the website, which is designed for the general public with basic information and does not contain classified or personal data, officials said.

Thousands of foreign jihadists are still flooding into Syria to fight, U.S. President Barack Obama warned Monday, as he urged greater efforts to halt the flow, particularly through the porous Turkish border.

"Not all of that is preventable, but a lot of it is preventable if we've got better cooperation, better coordination, better intelligence, if we are monitoring what's happening at the Turkish-Syria border more effectively," said Obama after meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Germany.

Sheikh Mustafa al-Hujeiri denied Monday media reports alleging that Abou Malek al-Talli, the so-called emir of al-Nusra Front in Qalamoun, had sought refuge at his residence in the northeastern border town of Arsal after fleeing a Hizbullah offensive in the outskirts.

“Abou Malek al-Talli took part in the meeting with the family of the (captive) soldier George Khoury. He confirmed that he is present in the outskirts and will not enter Arsal or allow a battle in it,” LBCI television quoted Hujeiri as saying.