Al-Nusra Front, the al-Qaida franchise in Syria, has seized a moderate rebel commander in the southern province of Daraa, a monitoring group said on Sunday.

"Al-Nusra Front last night arrested the head of the Military Council of Daraa, Captain Ahmad Naameh, along with five other commanders of opposition factions," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Around 60,000 people have fled towns in Deir Ezzor province of eastern Syria that have been the scene of fierce clashes between rival jihadists, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday.

The battle between al-Qaida affiliate Al-Nusra Front and the breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has raged for four days despite an order from al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri to stop fighting.

President Bashar Assad on Saturday urged government bodies tasked with providing relief in war-torn Syria to increase "cooperation" with international and local organisations, state television reported.

His statement came after U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon issued a report saying that foreign aid was still not reaching millions of needy Syrians despite a Security Council resolution in February calling for greater access.

A Spanish court on Saturday remanded in custody a French-Algerian man suspected of fighting for terror groups linked to al-Qaida in Syria before he is extradited to France.

Spanish officers with the help of French police seized Abdelmalek Tanem, 24, in the southern city of Almeria on Wednesday.

Talks on a rebel withdrawal from a handful of besieged neighborhoods in Syria's Homs have entered their final phase, officials said Saturday, as the army advanced around Damascus and Aleppo.

Talks to evacuate Homs, once dubbed "the capital of the revolution" against President Bashar Assad, are near completion, according to Governor Talal al-Barazi and rebel representative and negotiator Abul Harith al-Khalidi.

Hizbullah members on Saturday clashed with Syrian gunmen who tried to infiltrate the Bekaa town of Brital, LBCI television reported.

"A clash erupted between Hizbullah members and armed Syrians in Brital when the gunmen tried to infiltrate Brital,” LBCI said.

An official Syrian newspaper on Saturday launched a stinging attack on U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, and demanded that she be replaced.

"In her reporting, she has brought together an entire anthology of false and hypocritical terms that we find in Western rhetoric," said Al-Thawra.

A number of Syrians and Palestinians were arrested on Saturday as they attempted to travel from Lebanon using false legal papers, reported the National News Agency.

It said that 49 Syrians and Palestinians, who sought refuge from Syria, were arrested by security forces at the Rafik Hariri International Airport.

The head of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said Friday he was "determined" to keep any 9/11-type scenario from growing out of Syria, as more foreign fighters flock to the conflict.

FBI Director James Comey compared the civil war in Syria to Afghanistan in the 1980s and 90s, when fighters there eventually formed Al-Qaida and declared war on the U.S., leading to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The head of the Syrian opposition in exile will visit the United States next Wednesday seeking sophisticated weapons for rebels battling to overthrow the regime, his office said Friday.

The visit comes just weeks after rebels disclosed a pilot program under which a "Western source" supplied them with 20 U.S.-made TOW anti-tank missiles, with the promise of more if they were used effectively.