Iran is ready to play a role alongside other regional countries to try to establish a dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition, an official was quoted as saying on Saturday.

"Iran is ready to play an appropriate role in bringing stability and security in Syria" to prevent the crisis "quickly spreading to the whole region," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told the Iran newspaper.

The house of a Lebanese man was damaged by cross-border fire in the northern area of Wadi Khaled at dawn Saturday, a day after the army began heavily deploying on the northern and northeastern boundary with Syria.

Several bullets hit the house of Mohammed Abadi after gunfire reached the villages of Hnaider, al-Hishe and al-Muqaibla in Wadi Khaled. But no casualties were reported.

Hundreds of soldiers backed by helicopter gunships attacked a town in southern Syria on Saturday, as at least 28 people were killed across the country, reports said.

"Tanks and hundreds of soldiers stormed Khirbet Ghazaleh amid heavy gunfire" following helicopter bombing raids, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, without providing any casualty figures.

French President Francois Hollande on Friday called on Russia and China not to oppose U.N. sanctions against Syria following the latest massacre which rebels blame on regime troops.

"I say to the Russians, the Chinese: doing nothing to advance us toward stronger sanctions will only result in chaos and war in Syria at the expense of (your) own interests," he said, speaking on BFM television.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that the Syrian government had "flouted" U.N. resolutions with the latest mass killings in the country.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon also told the council that the killings in the village of Treimsa were an "outrageous escalation" of the conflict.

Russia on Friday condemned the latest reported massacre in Syria as a "bloody atrocity" which it blamed on forces that want to foment inter-ethnic conflict and civil war.

The Russian foreign ministry said it believed between 50 and 100 people were killed Thursday in the central village of Treimsa in an attack the rebels and the government of President Bashar Assad have both blamed on each other.

Iran's armed forces chief accused Turkey and Jordan of allowing rebel fighters into Syria and urged them to seal off their borders, ISNA news agency reported on Friday.

"It is the duty of Syria's Muslim neighbors to refrain from backing the terrorists," armed forces chief of staff General Hassan Firouzabadi was quoted as saying.

Syrian troops opened fire on protesters on Friday in Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, the country's commercial hub, as at least 90 deaths were reported across the country.

Regime forces shot dead 14 people in Homs, 24 in Idlib, three in Daraa, four in Damascus, 12 in Aleppo, seven in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, two in Hama, two in the countryside around Damascus, one in Deir Ezzor and one in Latakia, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri condemned on Friday the “latest massacre committed by the Syrian regime” in the town of Treimsa in Hama, saying that it has hit “a new record in crimes against humanity.”

He said in a statement: “I call on all Arab and world governments, the Arab League, Organization of Islamic Conference, and the United Nations to take immediate, practical, and decisive measures to protest the Syrian people.”

A Russian ship that tried to deliver attack helicopters to Syria last month has again left its Arctic port carrying the same military cargo, the state's military export agency said on Friday.

"The Mi-25 helicopters subject for return to Syria after their repair are currently aboard the Alaed, which is sailing from the port in Murmansk to another port in Russia," Interfax quoted a Rosoboronexport statement as saying.