Syrian President Bashar al-Assad insisted he will not resign before the end of his mandate in 2014 as a car bomb exploded in the capital Damascus on Saturday killing at least three people. "To resign would be to flee," Assad said in an interview with the Argentine newspaper Clarin when asked if he would consider stepping aside as called for by US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Turkey has arrested one of the prime suspects responsible for the twin car bombings that killed at least 51 people in a city near the Syrian border, said the city's governor on Friday. "We captured one of the chief actors involved in the incident at 11:40 pm last night," said Celalettin Lekesiz, governor of southeastern Turkey's Hatay city where the bombs went off. "There are still two other major suspects at large," he added in televised remarks.

Syria's main opposition bloc, the National Coalition, hailed a UN General Assembly vote on Wednesday to condemn President Bashar al-Assad's regime over its "escalation" of the country's civil war. "The Syrian Coalition welcomes today's resolution... condemning the Syrian regime's illegitimate and brutal use of force against its own citizens in its continued refusal to acknowledge the legitimate democratic aspirations of the Syrian people," said the Coalition.

Syrian troops backed by tanks and warplanes on Wednesday fought to repel an attack on the central prison in Aleppo after rebels blew up its walls in suicide car bombings, a watchdog said. "Fierce fighting is taking place within the walls of the compound" of the prison in the northern city, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, voicing concern over the fate of the inmates. About 4,000 prisoners including Islamists and common law criminals are held in the prison on the outskirts of the city, which is largely under rebel control, said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.