Syria's government and opposition groups should resume talks to lift the siege on Homs, where bombardments have re-started, international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said on Thursday.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Brahimi said the discussions had been well underway between the Syrian government and "a negotiating committee representing the civilians and fighters still trapped in the Old city of Homs as well as the inhabitants of the Al-Waer neighborhood."

Candidates for Syria's presidential election can begin registering on April 21, when the date for the vote will be announced, a government source told Agence France Presse on Thursday.

"On Monday April 21, the Council of the People (parliament) will meet to open registration for presidential candidates and set a date for the election," the source said.

The exit of Saudi's spy chief was the result of U.S. pressure over his stance on Syria but does not signal a shift in Riyadh's goal of toppling the Damascus regime, experts say.

Riyadh, as is usual, did not elaborate on its statement this week that Prince Bandar bin Sultan was being replaced, saying only that the veteran diplomat had asked to step down.

In the Bab Tuma district of Syria's capital Damascus, Fadi Mayal dreams of returning home to the ancient Christian town of Maalula which was retaken by government forces this week.

But he and many other residents chased out when rebel forces including jihadists entered the town in September fear it may still be too early to go back.

Syria is the world's most dangerous country for journalists a U.S.-based watchdog said Wednesday as it published its annual impunity index tracking unsolved killings of reporters.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists reported a "rising number of targeted killings" of reporters in Syria as a recent threat to journalists operating in the war-torn country.

Foreign fighters in Syria are looking to Western-based spiritual authorities acting as "cheerleaders" on social media, a British-based research body said Wednesday.

A study of the social media activity of foreign jihadists showed many were following certain influential preachers -- one from the United States and another from Australia, said the International Center for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR) at King's College London university.

Jihadist militants of the Islamist State of Iraq and the Levant have killed the head of the Al-Nusra Front and his family in northern Syria, a monitoring group said Wednesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a four-man ISIL unit killed Abu Mohammed al-Ansari, his wife, daughter, brother and niece in a house in Ras al-Hosn late on Tuesday.

Syrian refugees in urban areas of Jordan are struggling to cope with inadequate housing, high debts, rising costs and educational challenges for their children, a global relief agency said Wednesday.

CARE International said a household assessment of more than 2,200 Syrian refugees showed 90 percent of them were living in debt to relatives, landlords, shopkeepers and neighbors.

Syrian warplanes staged two raids on al-Maslaha village on the outskirts of the eastern border town of Arsal, the state-run National News Agency reported on Wednesday.

Al-Mayadeen Network reported that the area was bombarded with several rockets.

Jordanian warplanes destroyed "camouflaged" vehicles on Wednesday as they tried to cross into the kingdom from war-ravaged Syria, in the first such strikes since the conflict erupted three years ago.

A Syrian military source, cited by state television in Damascus, said the vehicles struck did not belong to Syria's armed forces, while Amman said an initial probe showed they were being used by arms dealers.