Syrian aircraft bomb area near seized Jordan crossing

Syrian military helicopters bombed areas close to the Jordanian border overnight after insurgents captured the Nasib border crossing, witnesses and a group monitoring the war said on Thursday. Rebel groups fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad said they had seized the Nasib, the main crossing on the Syrian-Jordanian border, late on Wednesday.

The al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front also said it seized the crossing, but the mainstream rebels denied this. Both Jordan and Syria had announced they were closing their sides of the crossing on Wednesday.

Helicopters dropped barrel bombs - crude devices filled with shrapnel - in the area overnight, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It collects information using sources on the ground.

The Southern Front, an alliance of rebel groups in southern Syria, said on Thursday that the Nasib crossing was still under their control. Nusra Front fighters had been told to leave the area, it said.

Pan-Arab channel al-Arabiya broadcast live footage from the Jordanian side of the border. It showed a plume of grey smoke rising on the Syrian side and said it was coming from an explosion.