According to United Nations (UN) more than 100 000 people have been killed in the fighting that has ravaged Syria for two and a half years with civilians often in the firing line.
The Syrian Observatory also reported last week that at least 41 people had been killed in violent clashes between Kurdish fighters and al-Qaeda-affiliated rebels in the oil-rich north-eastern province of Hassaka.
Twenty-nine of the dead were from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and al-Nusra Front, while the others were Kurdish fighters.
The group also said government forces had been shelling rebel-held areas in Daraa province and the outskirts of the capital, Damascus, and carried out air raids in Hama and Idlib provinces.
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said its inspectors had “conducted verification activities” at a total of 11 sites in Syria identified by the government as part of its chemical weapons programme.
Activities had also included “critical equipment destruction at six sites as well as some Category 3 weapons destruction”, a statement added.
Unfilled munitions and devices and any other equipment designed to aid in the deployment of chemical weapons, fall into Category 3.
Syria acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and agreed to the destruction of its chemical weapons arsenal after hundreds of people were killed on 21 August, when rockets filled with the nerve agent sarin were fired at several suburbs of Damascus.
The Syrian government and opposition blame each other for the attack.
Syria’s conflict began two and a half years ago as protests against four decades of Assad family rule that degenerated into a bloody civil war.
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