BEIRUT - Syrian troops have taken full control of a town near the highway linking the capital Damascus with Jordan, a new advance in the regime's campaign to drive rebels from the strategic south, an activist group said Monday. Rebels seeking to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad are trying to carve a pathway from the Jordanian border through the southern province of Daraa, in what is seen as their best shot at capturing Damascus. A few weeks ago, they scored significant gains, but have since suffered setbacks in a regime counteroffensive.

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian casualties treated in Turkey show signs of being victims of chemical weapons, the Turkish foreign minister said on Friday, adding to indications that President Barack Obama's "red line" on the use of such arms may have been crossed. Wary of the false intelligence used to justify the 2003 war in Iraq, the United States says it wants proof that chemical weapons have been used before taking any action in Syria.

More than 80,000 people have been killed in Syria's conflict since it erupted more than two years ago, a monitoring group said on Sunday. Nearly half of those who have died were civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The Britain-based watchdog said it has documented the killing of around 82,257 people, including 34,473 civilians -- among them 4,788 children and 3,049 women. It has also recorded the deaths of 16,687 rebels, including defected military personnel.

British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday arrived in the Black Sea resort of Sochi for talks on Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid a new international push to find a way to end the two-year civil war. "The Syrian problem will be discussed," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told AFP, adding bilateral issues would also be on the agenda. Cameron flew to Putin's palm-dotted residence on the Black Sea before the British premier's planned meeting with US President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday.