The Internal Security Forces' Intelligence Bureau has discovered that Syrian President Bashar Assad's media adviser Buthaina Shaaban is involved in ex-minister Michel Samaha's case, a media report said on Friday.

“The Intelligence Bureau has referred an additional file in Samaha's case that includes the involvement of Buthaina Shaaban,” MTV quoted high-ranking sources as saying.

Rebel fighters will execute dozens of Iranians they kidnapped in August unless Syria's army withdraws from the embattled Eastern Ghouta area of Damascus province, a rebel commander said on Friday.

"We gave the regime 48 hours starting yesterday to withdraw completely from the Eastern Ghouta area," Abul Wafa, commander of the rebels' Revolutionary Military Council in Damascus province, told Agence France Presse via the Internet.

The U.N. Security Council condemned Friday this week's "terrorist" attacks in the Syrian city of Aleppo that killed dozens of people and were claimed by a group affiliated with al-Qaida.

A statement agreed by the 15-nation council condemned the attacks "in the strongest terms" and expressed condolences to families of the victims "of these heinous acts."

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan again warned Syria on Friday it would pay a big price for further attacks, two days after a deadly cross-border shelling.

Erdogan reiterated that Turkey does not want war but is ready to act if threatened by the regime of President Bashar Assad, which has been at war with rebels since early last year.

A small group of Syrian Alawites, the same minority sect as President Bashar Assad, urged their community to join the anti-regime revolt in the country, in a statement sent to Agence France Presse on Friday.

"O Alawites all across Syria, enough is enough, so rise in unity against (Assad's) corrupt family whose only goals are treason, money and power," said a statement signed by a new movement calling itself "Free Alawites".

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Friday said he was not surprised by the blast that rocked the Bekaa town of Nabi Sheet, but rather by “the news of the death of Hizbullah members in Syria, who were unfortunately contributing to the killing of the innocent Syrian people.”

Speaking after a meeting in Maarab with U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly, Geagea warned that “the death of these members in Syria will have very dangerous repercussions, especially on the Shiite community.”

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly on Friday said “the United States calls on all parties to work together to insulate Lebanon from the effects of the violence in Syria resulting from the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown on the Syrian people.”

Speaking after a meeting with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea in Maarab, Connelly said she discussed with the LF leader their “deep concern over the destabilizing actions of Syria in Lebanon.” 

German federal prosecutors on Friday charged a 48-year-old man of dual German-Lebanese nationality alleged to have been spying for Damascus on opponents of the Syrian regime in Germany.

Prosecutors said the man, named only as Mahmoud El. A, was a Syrian secret service operative between April 2007 until his arrest in February 2012.

Speaker Nabih Berri cabled on Friday Syrian President Bashar Assad on the occasion of the anniversary of the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

He said: “Your country is passing through one of its most difficult tests and I am certain that your experience in defying Israel will enable you to overcome your current crisis.”

A town on the Turkey-Syria border was quiet Friday after Syrian shells killed five civilians there prompting military retaliation from Turkey.

The Turkish military has amassed tanks and anti-aircraft missiles in the town of Akcakale, following the deadly incident on Wednesday.