U.S. President Barack Obama will authorize U.S. troops to train selected Syrian rebels, in order to counter the rising power of al-Qaida-linked extremists, a U.S. newspaper reported Tuesday.

The White House did not confirm or deny the plan, but said it was "constantly considering available options to combat the terrorist threat emanating from Syria and to facilitate an end to the crisis."

Former President Michel Suleiman has vowed to back the resistance if it asked for his support but on condition that it abides by a defense strategy for the country.

In remarks to As Safir daily published on Wednesday, he said: “When the resistance needs assistance, it will find President Suleiman as its supporter but within known conditions and the vision of the strategy.”

Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is expected to clinch re-election effortlessly next week, believes he has saved his regime from a brutal three-year insurgency, despite international isolation and calls for his departure.

Assad, 48, came to power in 2000 with the reputation of a modernist after the death of his father Hafez, who developed the rigid military-political system his son inherited. 

Two brothers on Tuesday pleaded guilty in a British court to conspiring to attend a terror training camp in Syria.

Mohommod Nawaz, 30, and Hamza Nawaz, 24, were arrested in September as they entered the port of Dover on the southeast English coast.

Norwegian intelligence services announced Tuesday the arrest of three men suspected of wanting to support or join a radical group in Syria.

"There are strong reasons to believe that two of the arrested people have acted as foreign fighters for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)," the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) said in a statement.

Syria said Tuesday the United Arab Emirates has banned its expats from voting in the country's June 3 presidential election, after similar moves by France, Germany and Belgium.

On the eve of the election to be held abroad on Wednesday, "the UAE has joined the countries plotting against Syria by deciding to prohibit the holding of elections on its territory," said the Syrian foreign ministry.

A Syrian rebel commander said a team from the world's chemical weapons watchdog investigating an alleged chlorine attack against rebel-held Kafr Zita managed to visit the town Tuesday, hours after coming under attack.

Inspectors overseeing the dismantling of Syria's weapons program had been forced to return to their base after their convoy was attacked, but all were safe, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said.

Jordan on Tuesday downplayed the expulsion of Syria's ambassador to Amman, Bahjat Suleiman, saying relations with Damascus will not be severed and its embassy will remain open.

"The government's decision to consider Bahjat Suleiman persona non grata and ask him to leave within 24 hours over his insults to Jordan does not at all mean that Jordanian-Syrian ties will be severed," Information Minister Mohammad Momani told government-owned Al-Rai daily.

A senior Hizbullah commander branded by the FBI as one of the world's most wanted terrorists was killed fighting in Syria, residents of his village in southern Lebanon told Agence France Presse Tuesday.

Hizbullah has deployed thousands of fighters into neighboring Syria to back President Bashar Assad's army as he battles insurgents who have been trying to overthrow him for the past three years.

Italian aid worker Federico Motka has been freed after over a year of captivity in Syria, the foreign ministry announced in a statement Tuesday.

"Our compatriot Federico Motka, kidnapped in Syria and released yesterday, arrived this morning at the Roma Ciampino airport where he was welcomed by Foreign Minister Federica Mogherina," read the statement.