Syria's largest opposition coalition on Wednesday named an Islamist rebel chief backed by Riyadh as its chief negotiator for peace talks slated to open on January 25 in Geneva.

The coalition of political and armed opposition groups demanded the exclusion of other parties from the talks and a halt to the Syrian army's bombardment and sieges of populated areas.

The Russian military said Wednesday it had bombed the Syrian province of Deir Ezzor after a deadly Islamic State assault saw jihadists tighten their siege in the region.

"The Russian operation conducted military operations only in the provinces of Latakia and Deir Ezzor in light of unfavorable weather conditions and to avoid risks for the civilian population," Russian news agencies quoted military spokesman Igor Konashenkov as saying.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Wednesday there could be no military solution to the devastating war in Syria and said further confrontation with Saudi Arabia was in no one's interest.

"There is no military solution to the (Syrian) crisis. We need a political solution," Zarif told an audience at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov met Wednesday in a bid to create momentum for Syria peace talks to kick off as planned next week.

Negotiations between Syria's regime and part of the opposition are tentatively scheduled to begin on January 25 in Geneva to seek an end to a conflict that has claimed more than 260,000 lives since it began nearly five years ago.

Russian air strikes in Syria have killed more than 1,000 civilians since they were launched nearly four months ago, a monitor said Wednesday.

The raids, which started on September 30, have killed 1,015 civilians, including more than 200 children, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Israel is moving to declare 150 hectares in the occupied West Bank as state land in what would be the largest such seizure since 2014, officials and media reports said Wednesday.

If approved, the move is likely to draw international condemnation in line with previous seizures.

A spectacular fire that engulfed a luxury Dubai hotel hours before New Year's celebrations was caused by an electrical fault, police said Wednesday, ruling out any criminal activity.

"It was an accident due to an electrical short circuit," Dubai police chief Khamis al-Muzainah told reporters.

Faced with a massive decline in oil revenues, Saudi Arabia's King Salman marked his first year in power by taking steps to end his kingdom's generous welfare system.

In a year that could set the pace for moving the Saudi economy away from near-total dependence on energy, the 80-year-old monarch took surprising decisions to cut subsidies and introduced other key economic reforms.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly condemned Wednesday for the first time the January 2 attack on Saudi Arabia's embassy in Tehran as "a very bad and wrong incident".

"Like the British embassy attack before it, this was against the country (Iran) and Islam, and I didn't like it," he added.

A deadly Islamic State group assault on Deir Ezzor has seen the jihadists tighten their siege on the eastern Syrian city and left residents terrified and fearing the worst.

Fierce clashes have rocked the city's northern edges after a multi-front offensive on Saturday that cost the lives of dozens of people.