Jordan has arrested 10 Syrians who claimed they were army defectors after they left a designated area in the northern city of Mafraq, a security official said.

"They were arrested last week and currently under interrogation," he told Agence France Presse.

Blasts rocked the flashpoint city of Homs on Sunday as Syria's regime pressed its assault on protest hubs, with another 65 people, including 53 civilians, killed in violence across the country, activists and monitors said.

There was "heavy shelling of Khaldiyeh, Hamidiyeh and Old Homs neighborhoods by the regime's army, and explosions shook the whole city," the Local Coordination Committees said.

Sources close to Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat warned spiritual leaders that are set to meet in Bkirki on Sunday against not stressing an end to the violent crackdown of the Syrian regime on protestors.

The sources said that the Muslim and Christian spiritual leaders should take a clear stance from the Syrian crisis and stress the need for a political solution based on an Arab League plan for President Bashar Assad to transfer power to his deputy.

The top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East heads to Sanaa on Sunday to meet senior government officials and activists amid a political transition after longtime ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down.

The head of the rebel Free Syrian Army, Riad al-Asaad, announced Saturday the formation of a military council grouping all rebel chiefs, including Syria's most senior army deserter General Mustafa al-Sheikh.

The council "is a step towards guaranteeing the unity of the troops and armed forces (of the opposition) on Syrian territory," Colonel Asaad told Agence France Presse by telephone from Turkey.

Two Turkish journalists who have been missing in Syria for about two weeks are safe, according to an Islamic charity which said Saturday it was in negotiations to secure their return home.

"We are certain that they are alive and in good health," Bulent Yildirim, head of the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, told the Anatolia news agency.

Nearly 14,000 Syrian refugees had fled the crackdown in their country to Lebanon according to a report issued on Saturday by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

According to the UNHCR the number of registered Syrians in Lebanon includes 8,148 in the north, more than 5,000 in Western Bekaa, and around 1,200 in Northern Bekaa as the numbers are rising daily.

Several Syrian opposition groups will gather in Turkey on Monday to hammer out common objectives in the face of the regime's deadly crackdown on dissent, the main umbrella grouping said.

The Istanbul meeting comes ahead of the second "Friends of Syria" conference in the same city on April 1, the Syrian National Council said in a statement on Saturday.

Syria's army resumed heavy shelling of the rebel hubs of Homs and Hama on Saturday, monitors reported, as international envoy Kofi Annan arrived in Russia in a new push for peace.

As the violence continued unabated across Syria the opposition announced new steps to pile the pressure on the regime of President Bashar Assad, with army deserters closing ranks and creating a unified military council.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's visit to China to discuss the crisis in Syria, initially scheduled for this weekend, will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

Annan's spokesman had said on Friday he would visit Beijing and Moscow at the weekend for talks in two countries criticized for resisting global efforts to condemn Syrian President Bashar Assad.