Despite Assad's Concessions, Syrian Violence Flares

Opposition leaders have begun a three-day conference in neighbouring Turkey to find a way to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Forty-one people, including a four-year-old girl, were killed during the Syrian army's shelling of the city of Rastan this week. The siege came as President Bashar al-Assad freed 100 political prisoners, pledged to open an investigation into the death of 13-year-old Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, and called for talks with rival leaders to find a way to end the crisis that's gripped Syria for the last two months. Opposition leaders, who have fled to Turkey to work together to bring down Assad, said they won't engage with the president until he's put an end to all violence and freed thousands more people arrested by the country's secret police. Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 1,000 people have been killed in the uprising and more than 10,000 have been imprisoned.