3.58pm BST

Syria

• Warplanes have backed an offensive by Syrian government troops against rebels in Homs, killing seven people, including four children, an activists group said. The Brtish-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AP President Assad’s troops regained control of the strategically important Wadi Sayeh district in the centre of Homs early on Thursday morning. Government forces are trying to dislodge opposition fighters from several central districts that have been under rebel control for more than a year.

• A Turkish police officer has been killed after coming under fire during a clash between Syrians trying to get entry to Turkey and border guards, Today's Zaman reported. The mayor of the southern Turkish town of Akçakale, where the clashes took place said a group of at least a thousand Syrians wanted to enter into Turkey without their passports and started throwing rocks at a Turkish police station and set some border police cabins on fire in no-man's land when they were refused entry. He said unidentified people opened fire injuring several police officers. In all 12 people were wounded, including civilians. A Syrian opposition activist said two opposition fighters were killed in the clash, but a Turkish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Syrians were smugglers.

• The Syrian state news agency, Sana, says people have been killed by chemical weapons in Idlib province, pointing the finger at the jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra. In one incident in Saraqeb, in Idlib province, in north-west Syria, it says a shepherd and his guest were killed after a child in the house opened a vat containing "liquid materials", which the shepherd was storing. It also says "armed terrorists" threw "unknown powder" in the face of a number of people in Idlib. Sana said that victims were taken to hospital in Turkey "to accuse the Syrian armed forces of using chemical weapons". Separately, Syrian information minister Oman al-Zoubi told CNN that use of chemical weapons is also a red line for Syria, as it is for the US. Al-Zoubi claimed the government has proof that the jihadist rebel group Jabhat al-Nasra, which has pledged allegiance to al-Qaida, has chemical weapons, which he said were being brought into the country from Turkey.

• Discussions within the Obama administration in favour of providing arms to the Syrian rebels are gaining ground amid new indications that President Bashar Assad's regime may have launched additional chemical weapons attacks, US and other diplomatic officials have told AP. US officials claim intelligence agencies are seeing signs that Syrian opposition forces may be distancing themselves from the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra group there - chipping away at one of the key arguments against giving lethal aid to the rebels. The report says that no decision has been made but "arming the rebels is seen as more likely and preferable than any other military option". A Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 10% of Americans believe the United States should intervene in Syria's civil war. The online survey found 61% opposed getting involved. The figure favouring intervention rises to 27% if the Damascus government uses chemical weapons, while 44% would remain opposed.