The arming of Syria's rebels will have "very bad implications in the region," Iran's Defense Minister Ahmed Vahidi said on Saturday, according to state television.

He added that "the region will face a major crisis if foreign forces, currently (covertly) present in Syria, enter the scene" and intervene militarily.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati discussed with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu the latest developments regarding the 11 kidnapped Lebanese pilgrims in Syria.

Miqati contacted Davutoglo after media reports said that several of the 11 men have escaped after the area where they were held came under severe shelling.

Forty-eight Iranian pilgrims were kidnapped from a bus in the Syrian capital on Saturday, their embassy's consular chief in Damascus told Iran's state television.

"Armed terrorist groups kidnapped 48 Iranian pilgrims on their way to the airport," Majid Kamjou told the IRIB network, which gave the report on its website.

The battle for Aleppo has not yet begun, and shelling by troops is just the start of what is to come, a senior Syrian security official in the region said on Saturday.

"The battle for Aleppo has not yet begun, and what is happening now is just the appetizer," the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity, adding: "The main course will come later."

President Michel Suleiman stressed on Saturday that the tripartite formula of the people, army and the resistance requires some clarification, noting that the goal behind the defense strategy is to “confronting Israeli aggression against Lebanese territories.”

“We have already stressed several times in ministerial statements the importance of the cooperation among the people, the army and the resistance but we need to clarify the means of cooperation,” Suleiman said from his summer residence in Beiteddine.

China Saturday accused countries that oppose its position on Syria of undermining attempts to find a political solution to the conflict, after voting against a new U.N. resolution on the crisis.

The U.N. General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly passed a resolution slamming the Security Council's failure to take strong steps to end the fighting, which U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon said has become a "proxy war".

Defected Syrian general Manaf Tlass held talks with Turkish foreign ministry officials during a surprise visit to Ankara, a Turkish diplomat told Agence France Presse on Saturday.

Tlass, whose defection last month was hailed in the West as a major blow for Syrian President Bashar Assad, visited Ankara "at his own request" and held talks at the foreign ministry on Friday, the diplomat said.

The European Union called on Lebanon Saturday not to send Syrian refugees back across the border, expressing concern that they were not being protected and could face torture if forced to return.

A statement issued on behalf of the top EU diplomat, Catherine Ashton, said she was "concerned by the recent reports of expulsion by the Lebanese authorities of Syrian nationals to Syria."

Conflicting reports emerged on Saturday on whether the 11 Lebanese pilgrims who were abducted in May escaped their captors after the area that they were held in came under severe shelling.

LBC TV station didn’t specify the number of the abductees who have escaped, it said there was initial information that the captors moved the remaining pilgrims to another location.

Syrian television presenter Mohammed al-Saeed, kidnapped from his Damascus home in mid-July, has been executed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.

"The television presenter, a well-known figure on state TV, has been executed, and the al-Nusra Front has claimed responsibility for the killing," the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse.