The UN Security Council will add the Al-Qaeda-linked Syrian militants Al-Nusra Front to its sanctions blacklist next week, diplomats said Friday. Following a move by France and Britain, the Islamist group, which has become one of the most feared fighting forces in Syria's two-year-old conflict, will be subject to a global asset freeze from Tuesday, the diplomats told AFP. A pledge of allegiance by Al-Nusra's chief Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has caused divisions among the rebel groups battling President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria has threatened an immediate response to any new Israeli strike, as its militant ally Hezbollah said Damascus would provide "game-changing" weapons despite two reported attacks on military sites. Damascus also welcomed a US-Russian initiative to find a political solution to end the two-year-old civil war, while balking at Washington's demand that President Bashar al-Assad would need to stand down. The Assad regime also said it was ready to receive a UN team to probe claims that chemical weapons had been used in the country.

The Syrian National Coalition responded on Wednesday to a US-Russian call for a political solution to Syria's conflict by saying any resolution must include the departure of President Bashar al-Assad. "The National Coalition welcomes all international efforts which call for a political solution to achieve the aspirations of the Syrian people and their hope for a democratic state, so long as they begin with the departure of Bashar al-Assad and his regime," the group said. rd-sah/al

By Erika Solomon BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hundreds of Sunni Muslim families fled the Syrian coastal town of Banias on Saturday after fighters loyal to President Bashar al-Assad killed at least 62 people overnight and left bloodied and burned corpses piled in the streets, activists said. A pro-opposition monitoring group posted a video online showing the mutilated bodies of 10 people, half of them children, it said were killed in a southern district of Banias.