Syria troops rout rebels in Qusayr

Syria's army routed rebels from the strategic town of Qusayr yesterday after a blistering 17-day assault led by Hezbollah fighters, scoring a major battlefield success in a drawn-out war that has killed thousands.
As the United States and Russia prepared for talks in Geneva on a peace initiative, the rebels conceded they lost Qusayr after controlling it for a year.
But the main opposition National Coalition shrugged off the defeat, declaring the "revolution will continue".
The army said the "heroic victory" served as a warning that it would "crush" the 26-month uprising and bring "security and stability to every inch of our land".
Qusayr is just 10 kilometres from Lebanon and links Damascus to the coast, making it a conduit for fighters and weapons for both the army and rebels.
Its capture opens the way for forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad to move on the central city of Homs, where rebels still control many neighbourhoods.
The army, in a statement carried by the official SANA news agency, appealed for civilians to return to Qusayr, saying it would "show mercy" to those who put down their weapons.
On the diplomatic front, officials from Russia, the US and the UN gathered in Geneva to work on a peace conference amid fresh allegations Assad's regime has used chemical weapons.
The Geneva meeting comes as Britain said physiological samples from Syria had tested positive for sarin gas and there was growing information the regime had used chemical weapons.
"The material from inside Syria tested positive for sarin," a government spokesperson said in London, referring to the deadly nerve agent gas.
France said it will not intervene unilaterally in Syria, and that that was up to the international community, a day after stating it had proof Assad's regime had used sarin gas.