Al-Nusra Front News

Syrian rebel groups will attend talks in the Kazakh capital next week aimed at bringing an end to the country's nearly six-year war, rebel officials said today. "All the rebel groups are going. Everyone has agreed," said Mohammad Alloush, a leading figure in the Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) rebel group.

Russia has agreed the United States should be involved in talks on Syria`s future planned for this month, Turkey`s top diplomat said, as a series of explosions rocked Damascus.

People stuck in war-ravaged Aleppo do not have the luxury of refusing help from jihadists, a high-level member of Syria`s main opposition said, lashing out at international "inaction" in breaking the siege.

Another 250 civilians have been wounded in heavy bombardment by anti-government factions since Friday morning, according to the Britain-based group.

Syrian regime forces advanced in the battleground city of Aleppo on Friday, backed by a Russian air campaign that a monitor said has killed more than 3,800 civilians in the past year.

The United States on Friday designated French jihadist recruiter Omar Diaby a "global terrorist" subject to US economic sanctions, the State Department said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a jihadist from Al-Nusra Front, which has changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, was killed in the raid.  

The Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra Front, said on Thursday it was breaking ties with the global terror network, in a video showing its leader Abu Mohamad al-Jolani for the first time.

A child was among at least 15 civilians killed in air strikes on an Al-Qaeda-held town in northwestern Syria on Friday, a monitoring group said.

At least 70 fighters have been killed in less than 24 hours of fierce clashes between pro-regime forces, jihadists and rebels in Syria's Aleppo province, a monitor said on Wednesday.

The Yarmouk camp is a large district in southern Damascus. It has recently become a stage of intense battles between the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and the Islamic State group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 60 air raids targeted the Abu Duhur military airport in Idlib province which Al-Nusra and allied Islamist fighters seized in September.

According to the president, the situation in Syria "remains complicated," with the Russia-US-backed ceasefire still not fully implemented.

US Secretary of State John Kerry called his Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to demand that Moscow press its Syrian allies to respect a crumbling ceasefire.  

The clashes on several fronts have put a strain on a fragile ceasefire in place since February 27.

At least 210 combatants in Syria`s civil war have died in a surge in violence around the second city of Aleppo this week, a monitoring group said on Friday.

On Friday, Al-Nusra and its allies pushed regime loyalists out of Al-Eis, a strategic town in Aleppo province.  

Air strikes have killed several Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front members including its spokesman and regime forces have retaken a strategic town from the Islamic State group in the latest setbacks for jihadists in Syria.

Syria`s regime said on Monday it would attend renewed peace talks in Geneva starting March 14, but the opposition was still considering whether to go despite a major lull in fighting.