5.43pm BST

Here's a round-up of the latest developments:

Syria

• An airstrike hit a petrol station at Ein Issa near the border with Turkey. Casualty figures vary but an FSA commander in the area told the Guardian 70 people died and more than 80 were injured.

• A helicopter has come down near Damascus after reports of heavy aerial bombardment of the city. Activists claimed it was shot down. The Syrian government said it collided with a passenger plane which later landed safely at Damascus airport.

• Aircraft hit a residential area in al-Bab (Aleppo province), killing 13 civilians, residents say.

• Almost every day Iran has been using civilian aircraft to fly military personnel and large quantities of weapons across Iraqi airspace to help Syria crush the uprising, according to a western intelligence report seen by Reuters. An Iraqi minister denied the report, saying "nothing like this is happening"

• The United Nations says it is investigating reports that Syrian government forces have targeted children in the conflict. Syria's ambassador to the UN, Bashar Ja'afari dismissed the reports as propaganda.

• President Bashar al-Assad has told the Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, that the war engulfing his country threatens not just Syria, but also Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah, Radio Free Europe reports. Salehi called for countries in the region "that can play a role" to get involved and act as "one big regional family of nations" over the Syria crisis.

• The Friends of Syria group is meeting in the Netherlands to discuss new sanctions against the Assad regime. Dutch foreign minister, Uri Rosenthal, said sanctions against the regime would help drive Assad from office.

Libya

• Police in Benghazi are refusing to serve under the city's new security chief who replaced official sacked after week’s attack on the US consulate. Colonel Salah Doghman told the Libya Herald: “When you go to police headquarters, you will find there are no police. The people in charge are not at their desks."

Tunisia

• The ruling Islamist party Ennahda says Muslims have the right to protest "in a peaceful and civilised manner" against cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published by in a French magazine. But in statement Ennahda also urged people not to fall in a "trap" that aims to create conflict between the west and Arab Spring countries.

Anti-Islam film

• An actor who starred in the anti-Islamic video which triggered violent protests last week is to seek a court order compelling YouTube to remove the video. Cindy Lee Garcia, who appeared as a lover of the prophet Muhammad in the online trailer, is suing the video's maker as well as Google, which owns YouTube, claiming she was duped into working on the film and that her life has been threatened.