At least four members of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have been killed in the Syrian town of Qusayr, where the regime launched an assault Sunday, a source close to the group told AFP. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said four fighters from Lebanon's Bekaa region were killed in the town in Syria's central province of Homs. The men were reportedly killed overnight, shortly before Syrian forces began a long-expected assault on the town of Qusayr, a key stronghold of the rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Saturday he welcomed a US-Russian peace initiative to end Syria's civil war but had no plans to resign, in an interview with an Argentine newspaper. "To resign would be to flee," he told the Clarin when asked if he would consider stepping aside as called for by US Secretary of State John Kerry. "I don't know if Kerry or anyone else has received the power of the Syrian people to talk in their name about who should go and who should stay. That will be determined by the Syrian people in the 2014 presidential elections," Assad said.

Hundreds of people marched on Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday calling for Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi to resign and demanding early elections, AFP correspondents and local media reported. The demonstration was called by a number of opposition groups, including the Al-Dustur party of former UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei and the April 6 movement which spearheaded the 2011 uprising to oust then president Hosni Mubarak.

Hundreds of people marched on Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday calling for Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi to resign and demanding early elections, AFP correspondents and local media reported. The demonstration was called by a number of opposition groups, including the Al-Dustur party of former UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei and the April 6 movement which spearheaded the 2011 uprising to oust then president Hosni Mubarak.