New claims have emerged that President Bashar Assad's regime may have launched attacks with an industrial chemical earlier this month, despite an international agreement to eliminate Syria's chemical arsenal.

The latest evidence, cited by U.S. and French authorities, comes as Syria plans to hold a June 3 presidential poll, which the United Nations and the Syrian opposition have slammed as a "farce" that flies in the face of efforts to end the country's three-year war.

The United Nations sharply criticized Syria's decision Monday to hold a presidential election June 3 in the midst of war, saying it would torpedo a political resolution of the conflict.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and special envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi have both warned against elections in the current circumstances, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Syria's opposition condemned Monday's announcement of a June 3 presidential election expected to keep Bashar Assad in power despite tens of thousands of deaths in an anti-regime revolt since 2011.

"The Assad regime's announcement today that a 'presidential election' would be held in June should be treated as a farce and be rejected by the international community," said the office of opposition National Coalition leader Ahmad Jarba.

Britain on Monday dismissed the Syrian presidential election called for June, saying that holding it during a civil war means the result "will have no value or credibility".

Parliament speaker Mohammad al-Lahham announced the poll, which is expected to return President Bashar Assad to office, for June 3 despite the ongoing conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Mock executions, hunger, thirst, cold, beatings, a makeshift chess game to pass the time... and a "surreal" snowball fight with their jailers.

Details are starting to trickle through of the ordeal experienced by the four French journalists who returned home Sunday after being held hostage for 10 months at the hands of the most radical of Syria's jihadist groups, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq said that a plan will kick off on Tuesday to evacuate people who are injured from the remote border village of al-Tufail and to send humanitarian aid to the residents.

“Gunmen will not be allowed to enter Lebanon... We will only open a safe passage for the residents of the town,” Mashnouq said in a press conference held on Monday at his office at the interior ministry.

Syria's state-run media say a pair of mortar shells hit near the parliament building in central Damascus, killing five people.

SANA news agency says the mortars struck some 320 feet (100 meters) from the parliament in the Salihiya area of the Syrian capital on Monday morning.

A Saudi court has sentenced to death five people over deadly 2003 attacks that marked the start of a wave of al-Qaida violence, media reported Monday.

Dozens of Saudis and expats were killed and wounded that year in car bombings that ripped through three residential compounds in Riyadh where foreigners lived.

The presidential elections in Lebanon could be postponed to September pending a number of regional and international developments, reported the Kuwaiti daily al-Anba on Monday.

Concerned sources told the daily that Lebanon has to overcome three obstacles in order to be able to hold the polls.

Residents of Maalula returned to the historic Christian town on Sunday to mark Easter, glad that the Syrian army freed it from rebel control but pained at the widespread destruction.

As they strolled into the picturesque town, flanked by reporters on a government-organized tour, President Bashar Assad also paid a rare visit less than a week after his troops recaptured Maalula.