ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland - Global leaders at the G-8 summit called for peace talks to resolve Syria’s civil war Tuesday, but made no mention of arming the rebels or what should happen to President Bashar Assad.

“We remain committed to achieving a political solution to the crisis based on a vision for a united, inclusive and democratic Syria,” said a final communique.

The document made no mention of Assad, whom Western leaders have said in the past said must step down as part of a resolution.

However, in an indication of some agreement, it did call on both sides to commit to “destroying and expelling” al-Qaeda-affiliated groups and removing “any other non-state actors linked to terrorism.”

President Barack Obama echoed that concern, saying it was important to build a strong opposition in Syria that could function if Assad loses power.

Isolated at the G-8, Russia's Vladimir Putin had clashed with other leaders over the conflict and resisted their attempts to get him to agree to anything that would imply Assad should step down or that Russia should tone down its support for Assad.

Obama and U.S. allies want Assad to cede power while Putin, whose rhetoric has become increasingly anti-Western since he was re-elected last year, believes that would be disastrous at a time when no clear transition plan exists.

Russia has been Assad's most powerful supporter as his forces struggle to crush an uprising in which an estimated 93,000 people have been killed since March 2011. He can also count on backing from Iran.

The United States, Turkey, and European and Gulf Arab states support the rebels, who have lost ground to Assad's troops in recent weeks.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, speaking on the summit sidelines, said earlier that Russia had refused to accept any mention of Assad's fate in the communique.

"This would be not just unacceptable for the Russian side, but we are convinced that it would be utterly wrong, harmful and would completely upset the political balance," Ryabkov said.

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Russia and the United States agree the warring sides should be brought together to discuss Syria's future at a peace conference possibly as soon as July. 

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the leaders’ talks on the issue had been more successful than anticipated, given the strong differences between Russia and the West.

"We have a very different outcome and much better outcome than I thought we were going to have," Harper told reporters. Before the summit, Harper had said he feared Putin's support for Syria would make a G-8 agreement difficult.

"I think this was a very significant move on the part of Mr. Putin and the Russians," he said.

The United Nations says 93,000 people have been killed in Syria and 1.6 million Syrians have fled abroad. Lebanon, the smallest of Syria's neighbors, has taken in more than half a million Syrian refugees.

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This story was originally published on Tue Jun 18, 2013 12:18 PM EDT

DAMASCUS, Syria -- Two suicide bombers hit a central Damascus square Tuesday, killing at least 14 people, activists and the state media reported. Activists said one of the explosions took place inside a police station and that many of the dead were policemen.

Syrian state TV quoted a security official as saying 14 people died in explosions caused by two "terrorist" suicide bombers near a police station in the bustling Marjeh Square in the heart of the capital. The official said another 31 were wounded.

The state-run Ikhbariya TV station showed footage of broken shop facades and mangled cars in the central square as ambulance workers were seen carrying the wounded on stretchers.

Marjeh Square has been the scene of previous attacks this year.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists on the ground in Syria, said 15 were killed in the explosions, one of which was caused by a man blowing himself up inside the police station in Marjeh Square. The group said the other explosion occurred outside the police station. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the two accounts.

SANA via AP

A photo from official Syrian news agency SANA shows damage from one of two suicide bombings Tuesday.

Suicide attacks and car bombs have become common in Damascus. Tuesday's twin explosions in the capital are the first since government troops, backed by fighters from Lebanon's Shiite group Hezbollah, captured Qusair, a strategic town in the central province of Homs, the linchpin linking Damascus with the regime strongholds on the Mediterranean coast.

Following the capture of Qusair, Syrian state-run media and the Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar TV have said the regime is preparing an offensive reportedly named Operation Northern Storm to recapture Aleppo. The regime was also believed to be advancing on the central city of Homs.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but car bombs and suicide attacks targeting Damascus and other cities that remain under government control have been claimed in the past by the al Qaeda-affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra — one of scores of rebel factions fighting the forces of President Bashar Assad.

On Saturday, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden car in the central city of Homs, tearing through an area largely populated by the regime's Alawite sect and killing seven people.

Syria's conflict started with largely peaceful protests against Assad's regime in March 2011 but eventually turned into a civil war that has killed more than 80,000 people, according to the United Nations.

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Al-Manar TV via Reuters

A man carrying a Syrian flag with an image of President Bashar Assad on it looks down from a clock tower in Qusair after the Syrian army took control of the city from rebel fighters in this still image taken from video, on Wednesday.

A young soldier clambered to the top of a badly damaged clock tower in the battered Syrian city of Qusair and planted the regime flag for all the world to see. In case there was any doubt as to his political leanings, he glued President Bashar Assad's smiling face onto the banner. Subtlety – like all good things in times of war – is easily sacrificed.

There is no question that the fall of Qusair to Assad's forces is a major blow to rebels hoping to bring down the regime. This small western town straddles one of the major highways that link the capital Damascus to the Alawite strongholds on the Mediterranean coast. It is from these Alawite communities that Assad -- an Alawite (a sect of Shi'ite Islam) himself -- derives most of his power.

More crucially for the rebels, the loss of Qusair means the loss of a major supply line into central Syria. The opposition in that specific area relied heavily on the Sunni community in neighboring Lebanon for arms and medical aid, so without Qusair their access to Lebanon will be severely handicapped.

Should the Syrian regime manage to seal off the Lebanese border completely, then all the arms shipments and aid that accompanies them will dry up.

However, as significant as this battle is for Assad, the victory in Qusair does not necessarily mean the civil war is anywhere near its end.

The rebels still hold large swaths of the country – especially in the north, where they are better equipped than their fellow fighters in Qusair.

Their lines of support are also much stronger. Northern Syria runs along the Turkish border for hundreds of miles and the Turkish government has openly supported the rebels with arms, supplies and all the available logistical back-up they need. This level of backing, as well as increased arms supplies from Arab states like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, is not likely to evaporate.

Additionally, the European Union has lifted its self-imposed ban on supplying the rebels with arms. The events of the last few days may concentrate their minds further and speed up the supplies to the opposition.

This war has claimed over 80,000 lives in almost two years. The number of injured is many times more. No regime, however coercive, can quell such a rebellion. Qusair was a major morale boost for the Syrian regime but Assad and his army should not forget that it took weeks of heavy fighting and the intervention of thousands of Hezbollah fighters to dislodge the rebels from the town.

The victory was hardly a cakewalk and other battles will most likely be even harder to win.

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• UN launches 'largest humanitarian appeal in history' for Syria
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DAMASCUS, Syria -- President Bashar Assad's forces are turning their sights on rebel fighters in two major cities -- Homs and Aleppo -- after capturing a strategic town in western Syria.

The latest battlefield success in Qusair, near the border with Lebanon, was partly due to Lebanese Hezbollah fighters' increasing role on Assad's side.

Government troops pressed ahead Thursday with an aggressive military offensive, seizing control of the village of Dabaa just north of the town.

Hundreds of rebel fighters who had been entrenched in Qusair for more than a year fled Wednesday after a punishing three-week assault, retreating to surrounding areas.

The regime's triumph in Qusair, a key crossroads town of supply lines between Damascus and western and northern Syria, showcased the potentially game-changing role of Hezbollah in Syria's civil war and was openly celebrated in the militant group's strongholds in Lebanon and in Damascus, the seat of Assad's power.

Syrian state-run media portrayed Qusair's fall as a turning point in the more than two-year civil war that has killed more than 70,000 people.

However, dozens of rebel fighter brigades have taken unquestioned control of huge swathes of territory in the country's north and east, setting up local councils and Islamic courts to administer affairs in towns and villages.

Kurds have all but carved out their own separate existence in the country's northeast.

Josef Holliday, of the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said he believes Assad is not aiming for outright victory over the rebels in all of Syria.

"The objective is survival in what they (regime loyalists) consider the strategically important parts of Syria, with the majority of the population," he said.

Following the victory in Qusair, the regime's next targets are rebel-held areas in and around the city of Homs, a government official told The Associated Press.

As Syria's third-largest city and one-time epicenter of the uprising, Homs holds both strategic and symbolic importance for the regime.

In April 2011, one month after the uprising against Assad began, protesters gathered at central Clock Square in Homs, bringing mattresses, food and water in hopes of emulating Cairo's Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution.

The peaceful, mass protests eroded Assad's narrative that the uprising was the work of "terrorists" and "armed thugs," and were quickly put down. Since then, the predominantly Sunni city, with Christian and Alawite minorities, has come under crushing attack on numerous occasions.

"The (army) command has put forward a plan, which is being executed," said the government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge details about ongoing military operations.

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He said the army was carrying out "quick, successive attacks" to secure the northern entrance of Homs city and seized the village of al-Khaldiyeh along the way Thursday. It also intends to regain the rebel strongholds of Rastan and Talbiseh, towns just north of Homs city.

Pro-regime media outlets have said government forces are preparing to move to retake the contested northern city of Aleppo next.

Aleppo, Syria's largest city and commercial hub, was overrun by rebels last summer, and remains one of the country's bloodiest battlegrounds as rebels and regime forces fight over it.

Hezbollah fighters were instrumental to the regime victory in Qusair, but it's not clear whether they will participate to the same extent in future battles deeper inside Syria.

Jeff White, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the rebels were in for trouble, unless they improve their military and political command structure and get more weapons.

"The regime has laid down the challenge, and the rebels will have to respond, or they will have a bleak future ahead of them," he said.

The West, particularly the United States, has been reluctant to send more sophisticated weapons out of fear they might fall into the hands of Islamic extremists fighting in the rebel ranks, including members of Jabhat al-Nusra, which has sworn allegiance to al Qaeda.

A U.N.-sponsored international conference that was to bring representatives of the Assad government and the opposition together for negotiations has now been put off to at least July. 

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Two missiles from Syria landed in Israel Thursday as fighting between President Bashar Assad’s forces and rebels raged on the Golan Heights.

The Israel Defense Forces said that a “closed military zone” was declared near the Quneitra border crossing in response to the fighting. People were not being allowed inside the area and locals were warned not to work in the fields.

EPA

Smoke caused by shelling rises on the Syrian side of the border with Israel, near the Quneitra crossing in the Golan Heights, on Thursday.

No one was injured on the Israeli side, but two wounded Syrians who came to the border were taken to hospitals in Israel, an IDF spokeswoman said.

“There were two projectiles that landed earlier in open areas in the north and central Golan Heights near the border of Israel and Syria,” she said.

“Initial reports suggest … the missiles were the result of the domestic situation in Syria,” she added, saying the “assumption at the moment” was they had not actually been fired at a target in Israel.

She said the closed zone was set up because of the “internal fighting within Syria.”

“Agricultural workers have been instructed not to work in fields in that area” at the moment, she said. Outsiders such as journalists would not be allowed to enter the zone.

The spokeswoman declined to comment on whether Israeli troops were being moved toward the border.

An IDF source said that “we maintain routine security operation in the area” when asked the same question.

The border is guarded by a United Nations’ peacekeeping force and its operations chief Herve Ladsous confirmed there had been fighting in the area, Reuters reported.

"Yes there was shooting," Herve Ladsous told reporters during a visit to Paris.

"We are following events in the Golan Heights, which is a very sensitive region, with particularly close attention," he added.

Ladsous added that the 1,000-strong United Nations Disengagement Observer Force had taken measures to ensure the safety of its personnel but stressed that its involvement was not called into doubt by the incidents.

He said the region had been "extremely confrontational" in the past year. "We are doing everything we can to reduce risks. We have closed posts that were too exposed, reinforced our equipment and vehicles, and our activities are more static," he said.

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Activists told Reuters earlier on Thursday that rebels had taken the Quneitra crossing, which is manned by the United Nations force and is the only passage between Syria and Israel.

"There are heavy explosions and fierce clashing ongoing in the area," said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Ladsous did not confirm that the crossing had been captured.

Austria's chancellor, however, announced Thursday that the country was withdrawing its 380 members of the peacekeeping force because of the fierce fighting, Reuters reported.

"Freedom of movement in the area ... no longer exists. The uncontrolled and immediate danger to Austrian soldiers has risen to an unacceptable level," Chancellor Werner Faymann and his deputy Michael Spindelegger said in a joint statement.

The violence also spilled over into Lebanon overnight, Reuters reported. Lebanon's national news agency said 11 rockets had hit the town of Baalbek, a stronghold of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, which has thrown its weight fully behind Assad's war effort. 

Ahmed Shalha / Reuters

A resident stands in front of his house in Baalbek, Lebanon, on Thursday after it was hit by a rocket.

The White House on Wednesday condemned the assault on the Syrian town of Qusair by Syrian government forces, who worked with Lebanese Hezbollah allies to take control from rebel fighters.

"The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the Assad regime's assault on Qusair, which has killed untold numbers of civilians and is causing tremendous humanitarian suffering," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in statement.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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This story was originally published on Thu Jun 6, 2013 7:12 AM EDT

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces claimed victory in a major battle for a strategically important city on Wednesday, but rebels insisted they were still fighting despite a deluge of missiles.

The Free Syrian Army said they were being massacred in the city, but that its forces were hanging on and engaged in "big battles."

The road around the city is a key supply line from Assad’s Alawite strongholds on the Mediterranean coast to the capital Damascus. Fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement were involved in the government’s attack, the rebels said.

Syria’s SANA news agency said on its website that its forces had brought “security and stability to the whole city.”

It said Al Qusair was taken after “the killing of a big number of terrorists and the surrender of others.”

SANA via Reuters

Forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad carry their national flag as they walk along a street in Al Qusair, in this handout photograph distributed by Syria's national news agency SANA on Wednesday.

 “This is a clear message to all those who share in the aggression on Syria ... that we will continue our string of victories until we regain every inch of Syrian land,'' said a statement by the armed forces command read out on state television. “We will not hesitate to crush with an iron fist those who attack us. ... Their fate is surrender or death.”

A spokeswoman for the Syrian National Coalition said by phone that Assad’s forces had taken the eastern and southern neighborhoods, but the Free Syrian Army still controlled the north and the Dabaa area.

And Fahad alMasri, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, said Assad’s regime was “a big liar.”

“The Hezbollah fighters are trying to enter the south of Al Qusair. There are big battles going on now. They (Syrian forces) are trying to allow Hezbollah to advance by heavy bombing and extreme violence,” he said by phone.

“They have been firing 50 missiles a minute since yesterday. It is a massacre. They have raped women and killed and wounded dozens today,” he added.

He said pictures on Syrian television that were purported to be of Syrian forces in Al Qusair were of other towns.

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“I don't know which. They are waging a psychological campaign,” alMasri said.

He said that 70 Hezbollah fighters were killed on Wednesday.

Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, is expected to give a speech in the coming few days that will outline his organization’s Syrian strategy. He is expected to address whether it will provide greater support for Assad’s regime.

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AP

Residents of Qusair are under siege, with 300 badly wounded and trapped, a doctor there says.

At least 300 seriously wounded residents of an embattled Syrian town near the border with Lebanon need to be evacuated for medical treatment, a doctor told The Associated Press on Monday, as fighting in Qusair raged for the third straight week.

Kasem Alzein, who coordinates treatment in several makeshift hospitals in Qusair, said the wounded are being treated in private homes after the town's main hospital was destroyed during fighting between the Syrian army — backed by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas — and rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad's regime.

Speaking to the AP from Qusair via Skype, Alzein pleaded for help, saying evacuation efforts by local medical teams had failed after a convoy was attacked last week and 13 of the wounded were killed. He said medical supplies are running out and doctors treating the wounded most urgently need oxygen to keep the 300 people — mostly women, children and elderly — alive.

"The humanitarian and medical conditions are terrible," Alzein said, adding that no medical supplies have reached the town since the government launched an offensive on Qusair May 19. "We are treating people in homes in an unsterilized environment. We tried to evacuate the wounded and we can't. No one is helping us."

Alzein said 50 abandoned homes around Qusair have been turned into makeshift hospitals. Four of the homes have been converted into operating theatres. He said the doctors had stocked up on medical supplies, but they are running out of antibiotics, bandages and anesthetics. Oxygen supplies are already exhausted, he added.

The shelling of the town continued Monday, Alzein said. "Every day we have new wounded."

Appeals by the United Nations and other aid organizations to allow humanitarian workers to enter Qusair have gone unheeded by authorities in Damascus as fighting drags on and neither side has been able to deliver a decisive blow. Syrian regime troops and fighters from Hezbollah have gained ground, but rebels have been able to defend some positions and appear to be dug in the north and west of the town.

On Sunday, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon called Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem to express concern over the situation in Qusair, according to Syria's state-run news agency SANA. However, al-Moallem told the U.N. chief that the Red Cross and other aid agencies will only be able to enter Qusair "after the end of military operations there," SANA said.

The European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, Kristalina Georgieva, on Monday said she was joining the U.N and the Red Cross in appealing for a safe passage for civilians in the town, describing the situation in Qusair as a "tragedy."

"In a moment like this we must together all raise our voices ever more loudly until our protests can no longer be ignored," she said in a statement.

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WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator John McCain said on Wednesday, two days after meeting with rebels in Syria, that he is confident the United States can send weapons to fighters in Syria without the risk they will fall into the wrong hands.

"We can identify who these people are. We can help the right people," McCain said on CNN's program "Anderson Cooper 360."

McCain, a Republican, is an outspoken advocate for U.S. military aid to the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has angrily denounced Democratic President Barack Obama - McCain's opponent in his failed 2008 presidential race - for shying away from deeper U.S. involvement in the conflict, which has claimed 80,000 lives.

Critics of some lawmakers' push to arm the rebels have expressed concerns that weapons could end up in the hands of militants who might eventually end up using them against the United States or its allies.

But McCain said such radical fighters make up only a small part of the rebels forces.

For example, he said, Syria's Islamist al-Nusra Front, identified as an alias of al Qaeda in Iraq, accounts for only about 7,000 of the 100,000 fighters battling the government of Assad.

"Every single day, more and more extremists flow in... "They're flowing in all the time, these extremists. But they still do not make up a sizeable portion," the Arizona senator said.

The Obama administration, saying it is keeping all options on the table, has sent food and medical supplies to Assad's opponents. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also have been trying to organize an international peace conference on Syria.

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McCain said he was escorted during his visit on Monday by General Salem Idris, leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, and that he had a long meeting with Idris and a group of his battalion commanders.

"They're very disturbed about the dramatic influx of Hezbollah fighters, more Iranians and of course stepped up activities of Bashar Assad," McCain said.

U.S. public opinion is strongly against direct military involvement in Syria, but McCain said no one, including Idris and his commanders, wants American "boots on the ground."

However, he said the rebel forces made clear they want U.S. weapons. "Their message was ... They do not understand. They do not understand why we won't help them," McCain said. 

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McCain slips into Syria to meet with rebel leaders

Israel warns of action over Russian plan to give missiles to Syria's Assad

Miguel Medina / AFP - Getty Images, file

A rebel fighter from the Al-Ezz bin Abdul Salam Brigade takes part in a training exercise at an undisclosed location near Jabal Turkmen in Syria on April 24.

BRUSSELS -- Britain and France are free to supply weapons to Syrian rebels fighting President Bashar Assad from August, after attempts to renew an EU arms embargo on Syria failed on Monday.

After a marathon negotiating session in Brussels, EU governments failed to bridge their differences and let a ban on arming the opposition expire, with France and Britain scoring a victory at the expense of EU unity.

Britain and France have made a commitment not to deliver arms to the Syrian opposition "at this stage," an EU declaration said. But EU officials said the commitment effectively expires on Aug. 1.

The refusal of London and Paris to go along with the arms embargo could have caused the collapse of all EU sanctions against Syria, embarrassing the EU and handing a victory to Assad.

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However, EU ministers managed to avert that by agreeing to reinstate all of the restrictions except for the arms embargo on the rebels.

EU sanctions on Syria that will remain in place include asset freezes and travel bans on Assad and senior Syrian officials, as well as curbs on trade, infrastructure projects and the transport sector.

London and Paris have argued for months that Europe must send a strong signal of support for rebels fighting Assad by allowing EU arms deliveries, even though they say they have not decided yet to actually supply arms.

But they ran into strong opposition from other EU governments, led by Austria and Sweden, which argued that sending more weapons to the region would increase violence and spread instability.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the EU meeting had effectively ended the EU's arms embargo on the Syrian opposition.

"While we have no immediate plans to send arms to Syria, it gives us the flexibility to respond in the future if the situation continues to deteriorate," Hague told reporters.

London and Paris were seeking to increase the opposition's leverage in planned U.S. and Russian co-sponsored peace talks expected next month by raising the prospect they could supply arms to the rebels if the political process made no headway.

Slideshow: The lives of Syrian rebels

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People resisting the army of President Bashar al-Assad in northern Syria cope with loss and prepare for fighting.

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The debate has gained urgency because of military gains by Assad's troops and allegations of chemical weapons use.

But while a number of member states softened their opposition to amending the EU arms embargo and said they could back a compromise, Britain was unyielding in the talks, diplomats said.

"The British didn't give an inch," one diplomat said.

Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger said he regretted it had not been possible to find a compromise with Britain and France.

The EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, sought to repair any damage to the bloc's image, saying Monday's decision did not mean the EU had lost the capacity to "have a common policy."

"What it does mean is there is a recognition that in trying to establish how best to support the people of Syria, countries will want to make some decisions (on their own)," she told reporters.

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Israeli soldiers were scouring the northern part of the country Monday after reports that a rocket was fired toward the area from southern Lebanon.

Lebanese and Israeli media, citing security sources in both countries, reported that residents in the Marjayoun area of Lebanon, about six miles from the Israeli border, heard either the launch or the sound of a missile streaking through the air.

An IDF spokesman said residents of Metula, Israel, then heard an explosion, according to The Jerusalem Post.

"We haven't opened the bomb shelters, but we are ready," the newspaper quoted an IDF spokesperson as saying.

It was not clear who fired the rocket or mortar.

IDF teams found no sign of an exploded rocket or other projectile Sunday night and were searching again Monday, Reuters reported.

The incident comes as tensions from Syria have boiled over into Lebanon, where the militant group Hezbollah has vowed to support Syrian President Bashar Assad in the two-year civil war that has claimed more than 70,000 lives, according to U.N. estimates.

Israel, which keeps a wary eye on Hezbollah, has launched airstrikes in Syria that it says were aimed at the militant group and not the Syrian government.

Israel has repeatedly said that it would not allow long-time enemy Hezbollah to obtain sophisticated weapons.

There are also fears that Hezbollah’s backing of Assad could further inflame sectarian violence in Lebanon.

On Sunday, two missiles struck a Shiite Muslim area in southern Beirut that is considered a Hezbollah stronghold. Sunni Muslims in Lebanon tend to support the rebel forces fighting Assad.

NBC News' Lawahez Jabari and Reuters contributed to this report.

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News Analysis

TEL AVIV, Israel –  Syrian rebels have cheered Israel’s strikes against Syrian government facilities, while the Syrian government has said the attacks prove Israel is backing the rebels.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Israel is not engaging in the Syrian civil war. Instead, it is striking early blows in Israel’s possible next war: against Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.

“This attack had nothing to do with the Syrian civil war. The big story is Iran and Hezbollah, not Syria,” Professor Eyal Zisser, a Syrian expert at Tel Aviv University, told NBC News Monday.

“Israel’s message is that we want to change the rules of the game. For the last 20 years Iran provided all kinds of weapons to Hezbollah through Syria. Now this is the end of the story. Israel will no longer accept the rearming of Hezbollah,” Zisser added.

Analysts here say there are four weapons systems on Israel’s blacklist, whose transfer through Syria would trigger air attacks: guided ground to ground rockets like the Iranian Fateh 110’s reportedly destroyed in this weekend’s attack; chemical weapons; land to sea missiles like Russian Yakhont missiles that can hit a ship 200 miles at sea at speeds of up to Mach 2; and anti-aircraft rockets like the SAM 17s that would endanger Israel’s control of the skies.

Israeli analysts have taken to calling these weapons “game-changers,” whose transfer must be stopped at any price. But others point out that fearsome as they are, Israel has answers to all of them and is in no real danger of losing its superiority against a relatively small outfit like Hezbollah.

Where is Syria’s ‘red line’?
So the public debate in Israel, which the military has kept out of, revolves around this question: Where is Syria’s so –called “red line”? At what point will Israel’s attacks against targets inside Syria provoke the Syrian leadership into retaliating against Israel? Is Israel walking a tightrope that will lead inevitably to a sudden clash with Syria?

Israel takes comfort in its intelligence assessment that President Bashar al-Assad would rather absorb the blows and the humiliation than confront Israel. The assumption is that Assad knows any confrontation would lead to a brutal Israeli attack, probably against his air force and air fields, and that would lead to his defeat at the hands of the Syrian rebels.

But Israel is also in a quandary about its best interests: What is better for Israel: Syria under the Iranian-backed leadership of Assad? Syria under a rebel-Sunni-Islamist coalition? Or, most likely, the breakup of Syria into ethnic and religious cantons?

With no clear answer, Israel is electing to stay well out of it.

Its actions against Hezbollah on Syrian soil could backfire if Syria chooses to retaliate. So far, there is no real sign of that – although reports from Syria this weekend suggest that Syrian missiles are now trained on Israel.

But while maintaining a heightened state of alert, and positioning two Iron Dome anti-missile systems in the northern towns of Haifa and Safed, Israel is also downplaying any threat, its citizens are paying little attention, and an order to civilian aircraft to stay out of the northern skies is expected to be lifted today.

Related links

US official: Syrian rebels lack 'ability or intent' to use chemical weapons

Israel to Syria's Assad: Airstrikes not aimed at helping rebels

Analysis: Israel may be ready for more active military role in Syria

Ammar Cheikhomar / NBC News

The Old Market in Antakya, Turkey, has become a frequent stop for jihadists on their way to or from Syria, where they are battling the regime of President Bashar Assad.

ANTAKYA, Turkey -- In the Old Market of the ancient city of Antakya, there is a palpable sense of unease.

For wandering among the ordinary shoppers and tourists drawn to this border town -- known in antiquity as Antioch -- are hardened fighters like Abu Muntaser Alliby.

“I wish to die in Syria while I'm defending the oppressed there,” said the 27-year-old Islamist fighter from Libya, a veteran of three six-week tours in Syria who adopted a false name when he took up arms.

Antakya has gone from a tranquil stop on the tourist trail sometimes called "Tuscany with minarets" to a key staging post for the thousands of foreign fighters who have flocked to wage jihad against President Bashar Assad in Syria, bolstering the ranks of al Qaeda and Taliban-style militias.

The presence of Alliby and others like him has sparked angry protests by local people in the city. But others have profited, with shops springing up to supply the new demand for camouflage clothing, communication devices, backpacks and other equipment.

Their presence has also created a headache for the rebel Free Syrian Army. While they are allies in the struggle to topple Assad, their goal of establishing one Islamist state covering the entire Arab region is far removed from the FSA’s hopes of a democratic Syria.

And they are also cited as the main reason why the U.S. and other Western countries have not supplied the rebels with arms -- as some may end up in the hands of Alliby and his comrades.

Some analysts now believe this policy has inadvertently helped groups like Jabhat al-Nusra -- officially allied with al Qaeda in Iraq -- and the Syrian Islamic Front, an umbrella body of disparate groups with a similar ideology to the Taliban. At the moment, they're the only ones getting a steady stream of money and weapons and therefore are more attractive to would-be fighters than the poorly armed FSA.

But, listening to Alliby, it’s easy to see why the Obama administration is nervous and Israel might decide to take military action.

“We all have the same goal, which is to bring down the Syrian infidel regime and raise the banner ‘no God but Allah’ in Syria,” he said as he looked through the market for a backpack.

Ammar Cheikhomar / NBC News

The Old Market in picturesque Antakya has become a haunt for jihadists on their way to or from Syria. Many in the town are upset by their presence, but the fighters are buying, so vendors are selling.

“I guess that this is  the goal of every Muslim in Syria. ... We are all Muslims and we all ask for the jihad and hope to die while we are defending our religion,” he said. “I said goodbye to my parents and friends. I don't want to go back. I hope that I die in Syria or in Palestine.”

“I think any mujahed [jihadi] in Islam wishes to fight in Palestine against the Jews,” he added. “And I hope that we can have a center of Muslim mujahedeen [holy warriors] in Syria to proceed from Syria to liberate Palestine. Jihad starts from Syria and ends in Jerusalem.”

Alliby, who said he fought in Libya during the revolt against Moammar Gadhafi during which one of his brothers was killed, added that while the Libyan dictator was bad, Assad was significantly worse.

“He is not a man; he is a monster who doesn't know the meaning of humanity and doesn't respect anyone in his dirty war -- not the young, not the old, no woman and no child,” he said. “We see what is happening daily in Syria and how the people suffer there. I mean killing and destruction and displacement.”

Alliby said he was a member of a jihadist Islamist organization. He refused to name the group, but he was unusually open. Most jihadists refuse point-blank to speak to Western media.

In addition to jihadists, Antakya has also drawn journalists from around the world. One hotel is known as the BBC’s base, another is home to al-Jazeera. The jihadists, too, have their favorite hotel at a discreet distance from media camps.

It is at the bargain end of the market, but -- unlike the cheapest establishments -- provides an Internet connection and breakfast.

The Free Syrian Army might not run to such luxuries. Its fighters literally count their bullets and struggle to buy equipment in marked contrast to the well-funded, well-armed Islamist groups.

Luay Mukdad, political and media coordinator for the Free Syrian Army, admitted some FSA groups were “short on weapons, short on money and communications, so that’s what’s forced them to cooperate” with extremist fighters.

“Let me be honest, as long as Jabhat al-Nusra is holding their ground against Bashar Assad, there’s no problem,” he said.

Al-Nusra was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. in December and formally announced its alliance with al Qaeda in Iraq last month.

Mukdad said the Islamists fighters’ strength had been exaggerated in the media, but he warned that unless the West helped the FSA they would become stronger and more dangerous -- for Syria and the Middle East. While the Islamists hate the West and shun their support, the FSA believes it cannot win without its aid.

Ammar Cheikhomar / NBC News

Though angry protests have sprung up against Islamist fighters stopping in Antakya, so have shops to supply the new demand for camouflage clothing, communication devices, backpacks and other equipment used in war.

“We want Syria to be a civil country and we want to build our democracy,” he said, envisioning a country with “respect for all people” after the downfall of Assad.

Mukdad said the FSA would not allow extremists to take over the country.

“If Jabhat al-Nusra choose to be like al Qaeda or something and start trying to force people to do all the extremist things, like to force … the girls to put on the hijab or to do anything, the Free Syrian Army will protect the Syrian people,” he said. “Make us stronger. We want to protect our country and not let these people steal our future.”

Nadim Shehadi, a Middle East expert at the U.K.-based Chatham House think tank, said the best solution to the civil war would be an international military intervention, but he accepted that was not going to happen. The second-best option was arming the FSA, he said.

“What’s pushing people to join the jihadists is they are well-funded, well organized and they have the weapons,” he said. “They get them from private sources in the Gulf mainly. The others [non jihadist groups], they have to count their bullets.”

But Shehadi said that most ordinary Syrians now believed that the U.S. was on their side and the idea of Taliban-style rule was “not something that would fly” in ethnically diverse Syria.

“America used to be unpopular on the Arab street, when it used to support dictators. What’s emerging now is … an indication of American soft power,” he said. “[Syrians] want to be more like America than they want to be like Iran, Gaza or North Korea.”

Ammar Cheikhomar / NBC News

Vendors at the Old Market have found that jihadists coming in and out of Syria can be good customers. The militants are generally well funded compared with mainstream rebel forces.

Professor Peter Neumann, director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Police Violence at King's College London, carried out a study that estimated there were 5,500 foreign fighters in Syria, most from the Middle East and North Africa.

Like Mukdad and Shehadi, he said the West should arm the FSA to provide a counter to the hard-line Islamist or Salafist groups and accept this would mean some weapons would fall into their hands.

"We're so afraid of funding the wrong people ... but the absence of our funding has actually made that more likely because the only money that comes through right now is this hard-core Islamist money," Neumann said.

He added, however, that all was not what it seemed in Syria.

"There has been in the past a huge incentive [for commanders] to pretend they are Salafist in order to get some weapons," he said. "There are perfectly secular commanders who've grown beards and who are flying the black flag of Islam on YouTube just in order to qualify for funding from Kuwait."

Ian Johnston reported from London.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

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A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

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