Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Monday missiles it fired into Syria had successfully hit Islamic State group targets in retaliation for Tehran attacks claimed by the jihadists earlier this month.

More than 1,200 people including rebels left two opposition-held districts of Damascus on Friday under an agreement that will bring Syria's government closer to exerting full control over the capital.

Mexico's ruthless drug cartels left the country with the world's highest murder rate last year, second only to Syria, a report released on Tuesday by the London-based IISS said.

A new round of United Nations-backed peace talks for war-ravaged Syria is set to begin in Geneva next week, the office of the U.N. mediator said Monday.

After six years of conflict in Syria, government backers Russia and Iran and rebel supporter Turkey have signed a deal to create four "de-escalation zones" in the country.

Syria accused Israel of triggering a huge explosion near Damascus airport on Thursday by firing several missiles at a military position.

Israel has carried out multiple air strikes in Syria since the country's civil war erupted in 2011, most of which it has said targeted arms convoys or warehouses of its Lebanese arch-foe Hizbullah, which is a close ally of the Syrian regime.

More than 3,000 Syrians are expected to be evacuated Sunday from four areas as part of a population transfer that was briefly stalled the day before by a deadly blast that killed scores of people, most of them residents of the besieged Shiite towns Foua and Kfarya.

France on Wednesday blasted Russia's vetoing of a U.N. draft resolution demanding the Syrian government cooperate with an investigation into a suspected chemical attack.

The U.N. Security Council is set to vote Wednesday on a resolution demanding that the Syrian government cooperate with an investigation of the suspected chemical attack in Idlib province, but Russia is likely to veto the measure, diplomats said. 

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday he was "100 percent sure" Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ordered a suspected chemical attack this week that provoked international outrage.

Lieberman said the alleged attack in the neighbouring country was carried out "on the direct and premeditated command of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with Syrian planes."