Syrian troops backed by Hezbollah recapture rebel town near Damascus...

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Troops backed by Hezbollah fighters and other pro-regime militiamen recaptured on Thursday a major rebel enclave south of Damascus, a monitoring group and state television said.

"Sbeineh was a key rebel position on the outskirts of Damascus. Rebels in southern Damascus have had practically all their supply routes blocked," director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Rami Abdel Rahman reported.

State television also reported the takeover.

"Our brave army has taken control of... the Sbeineh (area)... and (the nearby village) of Ghazalah in Damascus province after crushing the last terrorist positions there," the broadcaster said, using the regime's terminology to refer to rebels.

Meanwhile, Turkish riot police fired tear gas on Thursday to disperse Kurdish protesters demonstrating against government plans to build a wall along part of the border with Syria.

Thousands of mostly young men, many waving red, yellow and green Kurdish flags, had earlier gathered to protest the plans in the Turkish town of Nusaybin, separated from the Syrian town of Qamishli by a strip of no-man's land and barbed wire fencing.

More than 100,000 people have been killed and some 2.2 million people have fled during Syria's 2-1/2-year civil war. The United Nations says around 9.3 million people or about 40 percent of the population need help within the country.

OPCW inspectors:

Chemical weapons inspectors said Syria has provided video and photographic evidence that shows a chemical weapons site near war-torn Aleppo has been dismantled and abandoned.

In a mission update released Thursday by the OPCW, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said photographs and footage provided by Syria showed the building empty and with "extensive battle damage."

The images were tagged to give the exact location and time of capture and have been authenticated by international inspectors.

The latest inspection means the U.N.-OPCW inspection team has verified 22 of 23 chemical weapons sites declared by Syria.

Inspectors last month visited 21 of the 23 sites but were unable to visit two one of them the Aleppo site because of security concerns.

International Positions:

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday he was confident a date could be set within days for long-delayed international peace talks aimed at finding a political solution to Syria's civil war.

Kerry, who was visiting Amman for talks with Jordan's King Abdullah, was speaking two days after the United States and Russia failed to agree on a date for the talks.

Turkey's Erdogan:

Turkey is not providing shelter or support to al Qaeda-linked groups in Syria and will continue to exclude them from its broader support for the Syrian opposition, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday.

"It is out of the question that groups like al Nusra and al Qaeda can take shelter in our country," Erdogan told a news conference in Stockholm during an official visit.

"On the contrary, any such structures would be subject to the same fight we carry out against separatist terrorist groups. We have taken the necessary steps against them and we will continue to do so," he said.

In this context, Turkey seized a truck loaded with 1,200 rocket warheads and other weapons near the border with Syria on Thursday and detained nine people, the private Dogan news agency reported.

The truck, which was also carrying bazookas, explosives and guns, was seized in Turkey's southern province of Adana, Dogan quoted provincial governor Huseyin Avni Cos as saying.

AP/LBCI/REUTERS