The number of Syrians fleeing the conflict in their homeland and seeking refuge in Turkey has climbed close to the 100,000 threshold, Turkish authorities said Monday.

Turkey is currently home to 93,576 refugees housed in several camps in the southeast along the Syrian border, the AFAD disaster agency said in a statement.

The U.S. wants to oust the Damascus regime by raising fears overs its chemical weapons stockpiles, creating a scenario similar to that which led to the invasion of Iraq, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said in an interview broadcast Monday.

"This issue (chemical weapons) is an invention of the American administration," Muallem told Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV in excerpts of an interview to be broadcast in full later Monday.

Army shelling and air raids killed dozens more civilians including children in Syrian flashpoints Monday, activists said, while rebels and loyalists fought close-quarter battles in Aleppo's main souk.

On the political front, Syria accused Washington of seeking to topple the Damascus regime by raising fears over its chemical weapons stockpiles and creating a scenario similar to that which led to the invasion of Iraq.

A shadowy Islamist group, Al-Nusra Front, said it is holding five Yemeni army officers allegedly sent to Syria to help fight an 18-month uprising, in a video posted on the Internet on Sunday.

The four-minute video posted on jihadist forums shows the men it says are being held in northern Syria.

A suicide car bombing in Qamishli, a Kurdish city in northern Syria, killed at least four people Sunday, state television reported, but a human rights group said that eight members of the security forces died in the blast.

"A suicide terrorist using a car laden with explosives attacked the western district of Qamishli," said the state broadcaster, adding that at least four people were killed.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged China, Iran and Russia Sunday to end their support for the Syrian regime, warning that "history will not forgive" their stance in the face of mounting bloodshed.

"Please rethink your current attitude. History will not forgive those who have sided with these brutal regimes," Erdogan said in a speech at a congress of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Head of the Iqraa organization for social development Sheikh Bilal Diqmaq stated that technical difficulties have thwarted the release of all the Lebanese held in Syria in one go, reported the Kuwaiti al-Anba daily on Sunday.

He told the daily that the kidnappers had informed a European journalist, of Arab origins, that the remainder of the captives “will be released before the Adha holiday.”

Iraq is determined to stop and search flights from Iran over its territory which are suspected of carrying weapons to Syria, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in comments reported on Sunday.

"We have assured U.S. officials that the Iraqi government is determined to land (Iranian) flights and carry out random searches," Zebari said, quoted by the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.

Fierce fighting broke out in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday as rebels attacked an army checkpoint near the capital, killing nine soldiers, monitors said.

Hours after a fire tore through a historic souk in Aleppo, fighting erupted in and around the Old City as rebels tried to seize control the district, said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour held talks with his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Muallem on the margins of their participation at the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week, reported the National News Agency Saturday.

The discussions addressed the latest developments in Syria and the ongoing efforts to resolve the crisis.