U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon expressed concern over the repercussions of the Syrian crisis on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701 but hailed the Lebanese government’s efforts to ward off the impact of the upheaval in the neighboring country.

In his latest report on the implementation of resolution 1701, Ban said the Syrian regime’s crackdown on protestors has continued to affect Lebanon, and raised concerns that the unrest could have negative ramifications for the country’s stability.

Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa has arrived in Lebanon from Syria, his employer the El Mundo newspaper said Wednesday.

The correspondent, who survived a bombardment in Homs that killed American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik had "left Syria and was in Lebanon in perfect health", the newspaper wrote on its website.

The opposition Syrian National Council announced Wednesday setting up a military bureau to supervise the "armed resistance" against the regime, as Washington raised fears of al-Qaida taking advantage of arming the rebellion.

"The SNC has decided to set up a military bureau, acknowledging the importance of putting controls on the armed resistance in Syria and in support of the Free (Syrian) Army," the umbrella exile-alliance of several opposition groups said in a statement.

The United States on Wednesday summoned Syria's envoy in Washington to express "outrage" over his government's month-long bombardment of the flashpoint city of Homs.

During talks at the State Department with Syrian Charge d'Affaires Zuheir Jabbour, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman also urged Syria to live up to its November 2 commitment to the Arab League to end such violence.

Syria on Wednesday refused to let U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos enter the country to assess the growing crisis blamed on the government's deadly clampdown on protests, the U.N. official said.

The U.N. undersecretary general had been in the region waiting for a visa to go to Damascus. But President Bashar al-Assad's government did not respond to U.N. requests, diplomats said.

Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel blamed on Wednesday Israel for the ongoing state of instability in the Middle East.

He said: “Israel’s rejection of peace is contributing to the emergence of extremists in the region.”

Wounded photographer Paul Conroy was taken to Britain's embassy in the Lebanese capital Beirut after he was smuggled out of the besieged Syrian city of Homs, Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday.

"I can tell the House that Paul Conroy is now safe," Cameron told parliament. "He has been in our embassy in Beirut in Lebanon, he has been properly looked after and I am sure that soon he will want to come home."

A Syrian opposition leader voiced skepticism on Wednesday over plans for a new U.N. Security Council resolution demanding humanitarian access to protest cities where thousands have been killed.

"It is better to have a meeting between the interested countries and to have a political compromise," Haitham Manaa from the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCCDC) told Agence France Presse on the sidelines of a meeting in Rome.

Hundreds of students in Aleppo, Syria's second city largely spared anti-regime protests and the ensuing crackdown, called on Monday for the city to join the revolt, monitors and activists said.

"Hundreds of students protested Monday against the regime at the University of Aleppo," the country's economic hub, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Kuwaiti MPs overwhelmingly approved a resolution on Wednesday calling on the government to recognize the opposition Syrian National Council as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

Forty-four members including all cabinet ministers present voted in favor of the non-binding resolution, while five MPs opposed it.