The Syrian army has destroyed a ship carrying armed rebels on the Euphrates River in the northeast of the country, state news agency SANA reported on Saturday.

"An armed forces unit destroyed a ship on the Euphrates carrying terrorists with arms and ammunition," SANA reported, without providing further details.

Syria's Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi on Saturday called for a national dialogue to resolve the country's crisis and said the army was fighting to protect the chances for talks.

"The only way to succeed in Syria is to sit down at the table to launch a national dialogue," Zohbi said in an interview with state television.

Syria's opposition resumed unity talks in the Qatari capital on Saturday under a cloud of reservations by the Syrian National Council main bloc over a proposed plan for a broad-based government-in-waiting.

The SNC said it would put forth its own proposals at the repeatedly delayed talks and suggested any final agreement would need more time, despite mounting frustration with its stance among other dissident factions.

Kurdish residents backed by militia have taken control of two towns in northeastern Syria near the border with Turkey after convincing pro-government forces to leave, a watchdog said on Saturday.

The region's Hasakeh province has seen heavy fighting in recent days between forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and rebels, with 46 combatants killed in two days as the opposition seized the border town of Ras al-Ain on Friday.

Twin car bombs at a military officers' club in southern Syria killed at least 20 soldiers on Saturday, a watchdog said.

The two bombs exploded minutes apart in the back garden of the club in the city of Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court's former prosecutor, said Friday that world leaders had a "good case" for asking NATO to prepare a warrant to arrest Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine lawyer who was the ICC's first prosecutor, said given "it was absolutely clear" that as Syria's commander-in-chief Assad's forces had killed civilians, NATO could execute such a warrant.

The U.N. Special envoy for the implementation of U.N. Security Council resolution 1559 said the world should give “priority to protecting Lebanon from harm at this difficult time.”

“Lebanon should not become a battleground for actors seeking to advance their own interests at the country’s expense or to destabilize the region,” Terje Roed-Larsen told the Security Council on Friday during a briefing on U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon's 16th semi-annual report on the implementation of 1559.

The Lebanese government is holding large-scale consultations with several countries to help Lebanon face the expected rise in the number of Syrian refugees who are escaping fierce fighting between rebels and government forces, An Nahar daily said Saturday.

The newspaper reported expectations the number of refugees in Lebanon to double after severe fighting in the south of Damascus, where rebel fighters clashed with pro-regime Palestinian forces in Hajar al-Aswad district and in the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk.

The nine Lebanese Shiite pilgrims abducted in Syria have telephoned their families, urging them to demonstrate outside the Iranian and Syrian embassies in Beirut, media reports said on Friday.

“I talked to (abductee) Ali Zgheib and everyone (of the abductees) spoke with his family and they said they're in good health,” Awad Ibrahim -- who was freed in September after being kidnapped with the group in May -- told LBCI television.

More than 30 Syrian soldiers and rebels have been killed in clashes over the past week in a demilitarized zone of the Golan Heights facing Israeli-held territory, a monitoring group reported on Friday.

Israel's deputy prime minister Moshe Yaalon, meanwhile, warned Damascus it would act to defend its sovereignty if the fighting continued to spill over into the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan.