Car bombs tore Wednesday through Syria's second city Aleppo, leaving dozens dead, as violence across the country killed 147 people, monitors said.

Two blasts went off in quick succession near a military officers' club around Aleppo's Saadallah al-Jabiri Square, ripping off a hotel's facade and flattening a two-story cafe, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati held talks with New York City with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, reported al-Liwaa newspaper on Wednesday.

A diplomatic source told the newspaper that the Syrian official lamented to the premier the Lebanese government's failure to provide the Syrian regime with support during its crisis.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati revealed on Wednesday that power-generating vessels are likely to reach Lebanon at the end of 2012 after they were expected to arrive in October.

Miqati said in comments published in As Safir newspaper that his cabinet is currently discussing ways to pay the Turkish company Karkey Karadeniz Elektrik Uretim the advance payment of its fees.

A series of leaked Syrian documents revealed on Tuesday Syrian intelligence's role in the death of Lebanese Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Wahed in May, reported al-Arabiya on Tuesday.

It said that the cleric and his companion were killed at Syria's behest.

The cabinet on Wednesday postponed the discussion of a report prepared by a Lebanese delegation that visited France to learn about the mechanism used there to intercept phone calls, while tasking a panel with studying the creation of an independent national commission for the forcibly disappeared persons.

The panel is headed by Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi and comprises State Minister Ali Qansou, Social Affairs Minister Wael Abou Faour and Labor Minister Salim Jreissati, Information Minister Walid al-Daouq told reporters after the cabinet session.

Latin American and Arab leaders agreed to form a joint investment bank during a summit in Peru at which they also discussed the increasingly bloody civil war in Syria.

At the end of the two-day meeting on Tuesday, the heads of state announced the investment bank would integrate national banks and could finance common projects between the Union of South American Nations and the Arab League.

A Hizbullah commander and several fighters have been killed inside Syria, a Lebanese security official told the Associated Press on Tuesday, a development that could stoke already soaring tensions over an alleged role for the Lebanese group in the civil war next door.

Hizbullah has stood by Syrian President Bashar Assad since the uprising began 18 months ago, even after the group supported revolts in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Bahrain. The group says it is backing the Syrian regime because of its support for the anti-Israel resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine and because it is willing to implement political reforms.

Violence across Syria has killed at least 31,022 people, most of them civilians, since the outbreak of an anti-regime revolt in March last year, a monitoring group said.

"At least 22,257 civilians, 7,578 soldiers and 1,187 defectors have been killed in violence in the past 18 months," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse.

The number of Syrian refugees in neighboring countries has more than tripled since June to over 300,000, and by the end of the year that number will more than double again, the U.N. refugee agency warned Tuesday.

"The latest figures show a total registered population of more than 311,500 Syrian refugees in the four countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq). You might recall there were about 100,000 as of June," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards told reporters in Geneva.

Iraq stopped and searched a Syria-bound Iranian cargo plane for weapons on Tuesday, but allowed it to continue as no prohibited items were found, Iraqi officials said.

Washington has been pressuring Baghdad to ensure that all Iranian planes flying through its airspace are ordered to land and checked for weapons. This is the first time Iraqi officials have said that they have done so.