Duty Editor: Mike Patterson Tel: +852 2829 6211 -- TOP STORIES -- + North Korea moves missiles from launch sites + Fears of Syria escalation after Israeli strikes + Thousands hold protest against Putin in Moscow NKorea-SKorea-US-military,WRAP SEOUL North Korea moves two missiles from launch sites on its east coast, signalling a lowering of tensions even as Pyongyang and Seoul exchange fresh warnings of swift and severe military retaliation to any sign of provocation.

US lawmakers called Sunday on President Barack Obama to provide intelligence and training to Syrian rebels through Arab states to speed the fall of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said such a combination should also aim to leave a stabilizing force in place in Syria after Assad's fall -- without committing US ground forces.

Fierce clashes between troops and rebels erupted on Thursday for the first time in a Sunni Muslim village in the Alawite-majority coastal region of Banias in northwest Syria, a watchdog said. "Since this morning, the army and pro-regime forces have been besieging the village of Bayda at the southern entrance to the town of Banias," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Syria's UN ambassador alleged Tuesday that an opposition group had used "chemical material" during an attack near the city of Idlib. With international pressure mounting on President Bashar al-Assad over the two year-old conflict, ambassador Bashar Jaafari told reporters the incident was an attempt to make it look as though government forces had used chemical arms. Jaafari said "terrorist groups" had got into the town of Salaqeb and "spread seemingly the contents of plastic bags containing a kind of powder which must be most probably a chemical material."