Hundreds of emails purportedly written by Syrian President Bashar Assad show he sent several sexist or irreverent messages in the months before the ongoing Syrian uprising began.

The French website owni.fr on Thursday published extracts from the latest cache of Syrian documents made avaiable by WikiLeaks, which on July 5 started releasing some 2.5 million emails it said were from Syrian political figures.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat criticized Hizbullah for announcing that it is premature for political leaders to discuss the national defense strategy because the party is still in the liberation stage.

“I’ve heard a statement from MP Mohammed Raad that there would be no surrender of arms before liberation. I object to that because the Lebanese state is the side that decides the liberation of Shebaa farms and Kfarshouba hills through the means that it sees fit,” Jumblat told a delegation of Arab journalists.

Up to 30,000 Syrians have fled into Lebanon over the past 48 hours, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday.

"Thousands of Syrians crossed into Lebanon yesterday. Reports vary between 8,500 and 30,000 people having crossed in the past 48 hours," UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told reporters in Geneva.

The United Nations on Thursday sent its top military official to Syria to take charge of an observer mission as the U.N. Security Council wrangled over the future of the operation.

Because of the growing dangers in Syria, European nations on the council have proposed giving the unarmed observers a final 30-day mandate to let it be closed. A Security Council vote could be held Friday, diplomats said.

Ramadan will begin on Friday in most Arab countries, religious authorities announced, but in Oman and Syria as well as for Iraq's Sunni Muslims and in non-Arab Iran it will start on Saturday.

Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, as well as Lebanon's Sunni Muslims, were among those to announce a Friday start.

The killing of three top regime officials has dealt President Bashar Assad a severe blow, but he has no intention to give up his power, experts said on Thursday.

Both the regime and the rebels believe they are winning as clashes engulf Damascus, for the fifth consecutive day, and a day after an attack struck the National Security headquarters, killing Assad's brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, defense minister Daoud Rajha and crisis cell chief Hassan Turkmani.

The Syrian regime is in its last days, the head of the main exiled opposition group said on Thursday, warning that a veto by Russia and China at the United Nations could have "disastrous" consequences.

"The regime is in its final days," Syrian National Council chief Abdel Basset Sayda said following talks in Rome with Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi shortly after the veto at the U.N. Security Council in New York.

National carrier Royal Jordanian (RJ) said on Thursday it has suspended flights to the Syrian capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo over the unrest in the neighboring country.

"Flights to Damascus and Aleppo have been suspended because of a sharp slump in passenger traffic following developments in Syria in the past two days," state-run Petra news agency quoted RJ as saying.

Syrian rebels took control of all border crossings between Iraq and Syria on Thursday, Baghdad's deputy interior minister told Agence France Presse, as a rights group said rebels also seized a crossing on the border with Turkey.

"All the border points between Iraq and Syria are under the control of the Free Syrian Army," Adnan al-Assadi told AFP by telephone.

Regime troops stormed a Damascus district with tanks on Thursday for the first time, five days on from the outbreak of fierce clashes in the capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"The army stormed the Qaboon district with a large number of tanks," the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse. "This is the first time that tanks enter a Damascus district."