Various aspects of Syria’s  internal conflict make the headlines this morning. The Times, Independent i and the online edition of the Guardian highlight a call by the opposition umbrella Syrian National Coalition for rebel fighters to converge on the town of Qusair which has been under sustained attack by government forces supported by Hezbollah fighters for the past several days. The Guardian online cites an unnamed US official who says that Iranian troops have joined the fight alongside Assad’s forces. The Times, Independent and online edition of the Financial Times report a statement made yesterday by Foreign Secretary William Hague at a Friends of Syria meeting in Amman, in which he said Iran and Hezbollah’s support is “propping up” the Assad regime. The Telegraph online says that France has thrown its support behind the UK call for a European Union (EU) agreement to proscribe Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist entity.  Meanwhile, the Guardian online focuses on efforts by the UK and United States to push the EU into dropping its arms embargo on Syria.

The latest report by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, into Iran’s nuclear programme is covered by the Times and by Julian Borger at the Guardian online. The report reveals that Iran has increased its’ stockpile of twenty per-cent enriched uranium, considered just a small step from weapons-grade material. However, it has not yet reached the level set out as a “red line” by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September. The IAEA report also details increased numbers of centrifuges at the Natanz plant and significant development of the Arak heavy water reactor. Meanwhile, the Telegraph online says that Iran has been using front companies to purchase and import elicit metals in order to bypass international sanctions.

The online editions of the Telegraph and Financial Times report that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has spoken out against the presidential nominations decided by the country’s clerical rulers this week, which excluded Ahmadinejad’s protégé Edfandiar Rahim Mashaei. In the Guardian, Julian Borger analyses the potential impact of Iran’s presidential election on the country’s nuclear development and foreign relations.

The Telegraph publishes exerts of an interview with Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister, Yuval Steinitz, in which he said that boycott campaigns in the UK indicate a degree of public animosity towards Israel. He suggested that for some, such feeling was rooted in hostility towards Israel’s identity as a Jewish State and thus constitutes a latent anti-Semitism.

Meanwhile, the Times, Telegraph and the online edition of the Independent report on an ultra-Orthodox wedding in Jerusalem this week attended by an estimated 25,000 people, who came to witness the marriage of the heir to the Belz Hasidic dynasty, one of the world’s largest ultra-Orthodox sects.

In the Israeli media this morning, comments made yesterday by Israel Air Force chief Amir Eshel are widely reported on the front pages of Israel Hayom, Haaretz and Makor Rishon. Eshel warned that Israel’s military is preparing for a surprise war on the country’s northern border, which he said “could oblige us to be ready in a matter of hours” in a conflict in which “we will have to give one hundred per cent.”  However, writing in Yediot Ahronot, Alex Fishman is sceptical over whether Syria’s President Assad has any real strategy to inflame tensions with Israel.

Meanwhile, Maariv reports that Tal Becker, a close advisor to Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who will also head an Israeli delegation in any future peace talks with the Palestinians, believes that the chances of reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority is currently very low.

Israel Radio news reports that Foreign Secretary William Hague will meet today with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.