Several European countries met Thursday with officials from the United States, Turkey, Morocco, Jordan and Tunisia to discuss how to stop young Islamist fighters joining rebels in Syria.

The fear is that the young fighters become even more radicalized and return home with extensive military experience which can be put to terrorist ends, Belgian Interior Minister Joelle Milquet said.

Britain was on Thursday investigating reports that two of its nationals have died while fighting in Syria.

The Britons are believed to have been fighting for the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant against another rebel group.

The United States stepped up pressure Thursday against Syria's government, slapping sanctions on senior Syrian officials, a Russian bank and state-owned oil refineries.

The sanctions target six senior officials of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, including his strategic affairs adviser, Brigadier General Bassam al-Hassan, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.

The Red Cross appealed Thursday for a record budget to help Syrians affected by the humanitarian catastrophe in their war-ravaged country, in the largest funding of an operation since the 1990s Balkan wars.

"The scale of the conflict in Syria is unprecedented, and the stark truth is that there is no end in sight," said Robert Mardini, who heads Near and Middle East operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Wafa al-Tarshi dreams of the "palace" she calls home in the Old City of Homs from which she was ejected by Syria's brutal conflict but could now finally go back.

Her dream could soon come true as the third and final convoy of rebel fighters was poised Thursday to leave the Old City under a deal negotiated with the Syrian regime.

The last rebels were poised to leave the center of the battleground Syrian city of Homs on Thursday, handing a symbolic victory to President Bashar Assad ahead of a controversial election.

Rebels hit back in the historic heart of Aleppo, blowing up a luxury hotel turned army position after tunneling under the front line that divides the main northern city.

Arab foreign ministers are to meet in Saudi Arabia on Monday to discuss the Syrian conflict, the Arab League said on Thursday.

The meeting was called by Riyadh, which backs armed rebels in Syria, to discuss the "steps that need to be taken to deal with the Syrian tragedy," the Cairo-based organization’s deputy chief Ahmed Ben Hilli told reporters.

Syrian rebels blew up a luxury hotel turned army base in the historic heart of Aleppo on Thursday after tunneling under the front line that divides the main northern city.

State television gave no word on any casualties from the attack that leveled the famed Carlton Citadel Hotel just across the road from the city's UNESCO-listed Citadel.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Lebanon was still denying entry to Palestinians fleeing the war in neighboring Syria Wednesday, despite its insistence there was "no decision" to keep them out.

"UNRWA has been monitoring the situation at the crossing point at Masnaa between Lebanon and Syria and can report that no Palestine refugees from Syria have been allowed into Lebanon today and that some families trying to cross have been refused entry," said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness.

The leader of the Syrian opposition Ahmad Jarba on Wednesday called on the U.S. to give his forces the weapons necessary to defeat the regime's well-armed military.

Opposition forces need "efficient weapons to face these attacks including air raids, so we can change the balance of power on the ground," Jarba told a U.S. think-tank at the start of his first official visit to Washington.