The Syrian National Coalition, the main exiled opposition group seeking the overthrow of Bashar Assad, was Tuesday meeting outside Istanbul to choose a new president tasked with keeping alive the campaign to unseat the Syrian regime.

The Western-backed coalition, which was formed at a meeting in Doha in 2012 to unite various anti-Assad groups, has been criticized for its failure to secure significant military and political backing for rebels inside the country.

Thousands of Syrian refugee women are caught in a "spiral of hardship, isolation and anxiety," widowed or separated from their husbands and struggling to survive, the U.N. warned on Tuesday.

In a new report, the U.N. agency for refugees UNHCR highlighted the plight of some 145,000 Syrian refugee women who are fending for themselves and their families in dire circumstances across the Middle East.

Self-proclaimed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has vowed to release Muslim “hostages” from jails in Arab countries, including Lebanon, and promised to “liquidate their butchers.”

According to a video posted on YouTube on Sunday, the shadowy jihadist said the “butchers” include judges, security forces and guards.

A 22-year-old Lebanese is the first to allegedly carry out a suicide attack in Iraq since the Islamic State's declaration, al-Akhbar newspaper reported.

The daily said that the family of Moustafa Abdul Hay, who hails from al-Mankoubin area in the northern city of Tripoli, was informed that he died after carrying out a suicide attack in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Hizbullah fighters heavily deployed in the northern Bekaa Valley in a first-of-its kind appearance by the party that previously sought to move discretely during the night in the area.

According to An Nahar newspaper, Hizbullah fighters moved military vehicles, cannons and rocket launchers at midday in al-Labweh, al-Ain and several other areas on the eastern mountain range near the border with Syria.

A U.S. naval crew has begun work to "neutralize" Syria's chemical weapons on a vessel in the Mediterranean, an unprecedented operation expected to take about two months, the Pentagon said Monday.

The MV Cape Ray, which is outfitted with portable hydrolysis machinery, launched the effort after having loaded on board 600 metric tons of chemical agents at an Italian port on July 2, spokesman Colonel Steven Warren told reporters.

The death penalty was asked for six Syrians on Monday on charges of forming a terrorist group, reported the National News Agency.

It said that Military Tribunal Judge Fadi Sawan asked for the penalty for detainee Issa Mohammed Rabih and his fugitive brother, Mahmoud Mohammed Rabih.

The Lebanese army said on Monday that it has arrested several people, including foreigners, on suspicion of involvement in attacks and “security activities” in the northern city of Tripoli.

Five suspects were arrested for tossing hand grenades at restaurants and for threatening citizens, the military command said in a communqiue.

Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi said on Monday that it's normal that justice palaces and security facilities would become the target of terrorist plots, doubting that extremists would be able to free Islamist inmates from Roumieh prison.

“We have taken our precautions and Lebanon doesn't harbor such ideologies,” Rifi said in an interview with al-Joumhouria newspaper.

The opposition Syrian National Coalition said Sunday that regime forces are preparing to launch a major assault on rebel-held areas of the northern city of Aleppo.

The group's leadership, meanwhile, was meeting in Istanbul to elect a successor to SNC chief Ahmad Jarba.