Syrian forces pounded rebel-held towns Tuesday and blasted a bridge used by refugees to escape to Lebanon, killing 35 people across the country, monitors said.

Twenty-three people were killed in the central province of Homs, seven in the southern province of Daraa, four in the northwestern province of Idlib and one in Damascus province, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

U.S. Ambassador Maura Connelly encouraged Lebanese authorities on Tuesday to provide the humanitarian needs of all Syrian refugees, including dissenters and deserters.

An embassy statement said that following talks with Interior Minister Marwan Charbel at his office in Hamra, Connelly “recognized Lebanon’s efforts to provide assistance to Syrians fleeing the violence in their country.”

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on neighboring Syria on Tuesday to allow the immediate opening of humanitarian aid corridors.

"Humanitarian aid corridors must immediately be opened," Erdogan told a parliamentary meeting of his AKP party, urging the international community to put pressure on Damascus to allow the delivery of relief supplies to civilians.

Syrian regime forces bombed on Tuesday a bridge used by refugees fleeing to Lebanon from the central province of Homs, cutting off a key escape route to evacuate the wounded, a monitoring group said.

"Regime forces on Tuesday bombarded a bridge near Qusayr, in Homs province, which is used by refugees and the wounded fleeing to Lebanon," Rami Abdel Rahman, of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Agence France Presse.

Syrian authorities said on Tuesday they had seized what appeared to be an "Israeli-like reconnaissance plane" in an arms factory in the Baba Amr area of Homs, the official SANA news agency reported.

"In Baba Amr, the competent authorities uncovered a factory for weapons used by terrorists to prepare explosives and hand-made rockets to be launched indiscriminately against houses," the agency said.

Canada imposed Monday a fresh round of sanctions on Syria targeting the central bank and seven cabinet ministers in a bid to halt President Bashar al-Assad's deadly crackdown on dissent.

The Canadian embassy in Damascus and a consulate also were shuttered and Canadian diplomats left the country, the foreign affairs ministry said.

Top Republican Senator John McCain on Monday called for U.S. air strikes on Syrian forces to protect population centers and create safe havens for opponents of the regime.

McCain, who lost to President Barack Obama in the 2008 election, said while the White House "deserves a lot of credit" for helping to build global efforts to isolate President Bashar al-Assad, it was time for a "new policy."

Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul Karim Ali on Monday called on the Lebanese state to be “very strict” in controlling its border with his country and to prevent “the infiltration of gunmen” from Syria into Lebanon.

“There is a safe haven for extremist groups, which are being given several labels, and we urge the Lebanese state to pay attention to this safe haven,” Ali said, referring to Lebanese border towns in the North and the Bekaa provinces.

The European Union on Monday urged more international action on getting humanitarian aid into Syria and called for Russia to recognize the need for new Syrian leadership, as Paris urged Vladimir Putin to mark his return to the Russian presidency by dropping Moscow's support for the Syrian regime.

"We need to see some action on Syria from the international community in order to get humanitarian aid that's so desperately needed into Homs right now," EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton told reporters in Prague.

The Phalange Party called on the government on Monday to carefully follow up on the flow of Syrian refugees into Lebanon, warning of a “new form of naturalization” facing the country.

It said in a statement after its weekly politburo meeting: “A crisis committee should be formed to address the possible repercussions of the Syrian unrest on Lebanon.”