US rules out Assad's role in Syria peace talks

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will never be part of peace negotiations to halt the brutal civil war, US officials vowed Monday, adding they were taking every step to bring an end to his rule.

Top US diplomat John Kerry appeared to suggest in a weekend interview that Washington would have to talk with Assad eventually if peace was to be forged, but State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki moved to clarify that assertion.

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"As we have long said, there always has been a need for representatives of the Assad regime to be a part of that process," said Psaki.

"It would not be, and would never be -- and it wasn't what Secretary Kerry was intending to imply -- that that would be Assad himself."

Kerry's comments had caused alarm both abroad and among the US-backed opposition as the war entered its fifth year having claimed some 215,000 lives.

Meanwhile, UN investigators yesterday offered to share information from secret lists of alleged Syria war criminals with prosecutors, to help bring perpetrators to justice.

Frustrated with the situation on the ground, the head of the commission Paulo Pinheiro said the investigators would share information from the lists with prosecutors in any country preparing cases.

On the ground, Six people, including three young children, were killed in an alleged regime gas attack in northwestern Syria late Monday.

A Britain-based monitoring group said doctors in the village of Sarmin, southeast of the city of Idlib, concluded that the manner of death indicated a gas, possibly chlorine, had been emitted from the barrel bombs.

Activists have accused the Syrian regime of using chlorine -- a toxic agent that can be considered a chemical weapon -- on civilian areas in the past.