Syrian rebels clashed with Kurdish militia in the northern city of Aleppo, leaving 30 dead and around 200 captured, a watchdog said on Saturday, sparking fears of a new front in an already fractured country.

The fighting between armed rebels and members of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), erupted on Friday in the majority Kurdish neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh, it said.

The United States has not deployed any military personnel or units in Turkey in connection with the crisis in Syria, the Turkish army said in a statement Saturday.

The headquarters of the Turkish armed forces denied press reports that U.S. military personnel had been sent to the country following increasing tension along its border with Syria.

Syrian rebel fighters in the Aazaz area posted on their facebook page Saturday that they have detained Lebanese journalist Fida Itani, reported the National News Agency.

They assured that they will free him as soon as the necessary documents and information about him are acquired.

Almost 150 people died on the first day of a barely-observed truce between the warring parties in Syria, a watchdog said, adding that a fresh clashes on Saturday claimed more lives.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said of the 146 people killed in bombings, artillery fire and fighting on Friday, 53 were civilians, 50 were rebels and 43 were members of President Bashar Assad's forces.

Switzerland on Friday adopted new sanctions against Syria, falling into line with decisions taken by the European Union, a statement from the economy ministry in Bern said.

It also took action against two men suspected of links with al-Qaida and the Taliban.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold talks next week with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on bilateral ties and the crisis in Syria, her spokesman said here on Friday.

Erdogan will arrive in Berlin Tuesday to open a new Turkish embassy building with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle.

A ceasefire in Syria appeared to be holding and may eventually allow the deployment of peacekeepers, a senior Arab League official said on Friday, hours after the truce began.

Ahmed Ben Hilli, the deputy secretary general of the Arab League, told AFP the truce brokered by U.N. and Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi was "being respected according to initial indications".

Ismail Haniya, head of the Hamas government in Gaza, on Friday called on Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime to release its "grip" on Palestinians staying in camps in Syria and on "Syrian brothers seeking their freedom and dignity."

"We feel the pain of our (Palestinian) people in camps in Syria, of martyrs and wounded ... May the criminal hand release its grip on children of our Palestinian people in Syria," Haniya said in his sermon for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Russia accused Washington on Thursday of "coordinating" deliveries of arms to Syrian rebels, despite assurances by the State Department that the United States provides no lethal assistance.

"Washington is aware of the deliveries of various weapons to illegal armed groups active in Syria. Moreover, judging by the declarations of U.S. officials published in U.S. media, the U.S. coordinates and provides logistical assistance in such deliveries," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Deadly car bombings and artillery fire on Friday shattered a fragile truce between the warring parties in Syria just hours after it had begun on the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

State television blamed "terrorists," the regime term for rebels, for a car bomb attack in Damascus that killed at least five people and wounded dozens, and a rights watchdog reported another deadly bombing farther south in Daraa.