A Syrian rebel commander has frozen to death in the bitter cold brought on by a snowstorm that has swept the country this week, a monitoring group said Saturday

"The body of a rebel commander who was on his way from (the north-western province of) Idlib to Homs (in central Syria) has been found. He died during the snowstorm," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said there were no signs of gunshots or other wounds and that the body was "frozen".

Syria has been struck by a severe snowstorm that has brought icy temperatures to several countries in the Levant.

The cold snap started on Wednesday, and while by Saturday temperatures were starting to improve, several areas remained completely covered in snow, including Damascus, battle-torn Qalamoun, Aleppo province and Homs.

People living in rebel-held areas, where there are fuel, electricity and food shortages, have been especially affected by the storm, as have refugees living in tents in neighbouring countries.

Mr Abdel Rahman said the unnamed commander, in his 40s, was a member of the Islamist Suqur al-Sham brigades.

The Britain-based Observatory also reported that the frozen bodies of two men in their 30s were found in Homs province on a road to neighbouring Hama province, but it could not say whether they were rebels or civilians.

The main opposition National Coalition reported Thursday that a baby and a child died of cold in Aleppo, northern Syria, and Rastan, in Homs.

But the icy weather has not stopped the fighting on a key front at Adra, east of Damascus. Battles have been raging there for four days, ever since Islamist rebels launched an offensive aimed at capturing one of the main entrances to the capital.

The army hit back with a broad counter-offensive, and on Saturday, a security source in Damascus told AFP that "the army's operations are continuing. Starting yesterday, we identified the areas where the terrorists are positioned and we are attacking them."

President Bashar al-Assad's regime brands rebels and dissidents as "terrorists".

The source also said a "savage massacre" had been committed in Adra on Wednesday, without specifying a toll.

The Observatory had reported 15 civilians killed Wednesday and Thursday. On Saturday, it said another 12 bodies had been found near Adra, and that "activists have accused the regime of killing them."

Chemical weapons taskforce prepares to depart

Danish soldiers from the Royal Danish Navy work at an helicopter onboard the Absalon military ship in the Cypriot port city of Limassol. ( AFP: Yiannis Kourtoglou )

As Syria struggles through the cold-snap, a Danish-led task force is being readied in Cyprus to remove the first part of Syria's deadly chemical stockpile, due before the end of this year.

Under a deal worked out between the United States and Russia, Syria will relinquish control of deadly toxins which can be used to make sarin, VX gas and other lethal agents.

Denmark and Norway plan to use two cargo vessels to transport the cargo out of the Syrian port city of Latakia, escorted by two frigates of their respective navies, and deliver it to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for destruction.

The deadliest chemicals in Syria's stockpile are due to be shipped out of the country by the end of the year under an agreement between Damascus and the OPCW, but the ongoing conflict is complicating efforts to meet that deadline.

"The timing is another matter and it is related to a lot of other uncertainties right now but we are preparing to be ready as fast as possible," Commodore Torben Mikkelsen of Denmark, the commander of the combined task force said.

"My job right now is to prepare this task group, capable of transporting chemical agents out of the port of Latakia in Syria, to a so-far not identified destination for ongoing further destruction of these chemical agents," he told journalists in the Cypriot port of Limassol.

US defence officials said earlier this month that sea trials were planned of equipment which could neutralise the deadly chemicals on board a merchant marine ship.

The technology, known as hydrolysis, turns dangerous toxins into a low-toxicity liquid waste. Task force officials said a harbour was needed for the cargo to be transferred for its final destruction.

"I think the plan is we will be heading for a harbour where we will meet an American ship and they have a field deployable hydrolysis system on board and they will destroy them at sea," said Bjorn Schmidt, a chemist of the Danish Emergency Management Agency who is a member of the mission.

The OPCW, was given the task of overseeing destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stocks following a sarin gas attack on the outskirts of Damascus which killed hundreds of people last August.

The task force was bolstered by chemical experts and vessel protection teams. Mr Schmidt said that he believed in the "worst case" scenario, about 500 tonnes of "priority 1 chemicals" - those that can make sarin and VX - would be shifted out of Syria.

"It (that size of estimate) is because we have the priority 1 chemicals which are those we want out.. But we are not aware if it is actually going to happen, if they get all the packed chemicals to the harbour, we don't know that yet," he said.

Officers said the task force would go "as many times as it takes" to remove the toxins.

AFP