The value of the Syrian pound on the black market sank to 1,000 to the dollar at some money changers Tuesday, marking a new record low for the nosediving currency.

Regime air strikes Monday killed 10 civilians in Syria's last major opposition bastion, where deadly clashes between regime forces and armed groups have escalated in the past two days, a monitor said.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday approved a $9.2-billion budget for his war-torn country, official media reported.

Russia has begun moving helicopters and other equipment to a new Syrian base on the Turkish border, state TV reported on Thursday, weeks after US forces left the area.

Two Mi-35 attack helicopters and a transport helicopter were moved from the Hmeimim base on the Mediterranean to Qamishli airport in northeastern Syria, reported Zvezda television, which is run by the defence ministry.

The United States will maintain around 600 troops in Syria, Pentagon chief Mark Esper said Wednesday, despite Donald Trump's desire to end US involvement in what the president calls "endless wars".

Eleven pro-Turkish Syrian fighters were killed Thursday by Kurdish forces in violation of ceasefire agreements aimed at creating a "safe zone" in northern Syria, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Some 300 Russian military police have arrived in Syria to patrol the flashpoint Syrian-Turkish frontier, the defence ministry said on Friday.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited government troops on the front line with jihadists in Idlib Tuesday, his first visit to the northwestern province since the start of the conflict.

While President Donald Trump insists he's bringing home Americans from "endless wars" in the Mideast, his Pentagon chief says all U.S. troops leaving Syria will go to western Iraq and the American military will continue operations against the Islamic State group.

They aren't coming home and the United States isn't leaving the turbulent Middle East, according to current plans outlined by U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper before he arrived in Afghanistan on Sunday. The fight in Syria against IS, once spearheaded by American allied Syrian Kurds who have been cast aside by Trump, will be undertaken by U.S. forces, possibly from neighboring Iraq.

The Syrian army deployed alongside Kurdish forces on the front line in northern Syria Wednesday but their newfound cooperation saw no let-up in the week-old Turkish invasion, a monitor said.