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.

Two explosive-laden cars blew up in a small Turkish town near the border with Syria on Saturday, killing 18 people in one of the deadliest recent attacks in the volatile area. The bombings in the town of Reyhanli, just a few kilometres from the main border crossing into Syria, come amid increasingly bellicose criticism by Ankara of the regime in Damascus. Interior Minister Muammer Guler said the explosions were caused by car bombs that blew up near the town hall and the post office in Reyhanli, according to the Anatolia news agency.

Syria's main opposition National Coalition on Wednesday said any political settlement to the country's two-year-old conflict must start with President Bashar al-Assad's ouster, implicitly rejecting a US-Russian initiative for dialogue with the regime. UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, meanwhile, hailed the agreement between Washington and Moscow to push both sides in the Syrian conflict to end the bloodshed and sit down for talks.

US Secretary of State John Kerry Wednesday doggedly pursued his hopes of both ending the war in Syria and bringing Israel and the Palestinians back to negotiations on the third-day of a whirlwind tour. Fresh from a marathon day of diplomacy in Moscow at which he agreed with Russian leaders to organise a conference seeking to end the bloodshed in Syria, the new top US diplomat met for talks with Israeli peace negotiators.