Regime forces Wednesday pounded rebel bastion Rastan, in central Syria, at an average rate of "one shell a minute," said a monitoring group, adding that six people were killed across the country.

Besieged by regime forces, Rastan is home to a large number of rebel fighters, according to opposition sources.

The abduction of the Shiite pilgrims in Aleppo had a positive effect on the ties between Speaker Nabih Berri and ex-Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who strongly condemned the incident.

Hariri contacted Berri on Tuesday, voicing his support to the families of the abducted men and stressing the necessity of exerting all efforts to release them.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi has expressed confidence that Syria’s Christians would not be affected if the regime of President Bashar Assad collapses in the ongoing turmoil in the country.

“The Syrian regime is dictatorial and the Lebanese have suffered from it,” al-Rahi told the Kuwaiti al-Seyassah newspaper published on Wednesday.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour said Wednesday that a group of Lebanese Shiite Muslims kidnapped in Syria would be freed "within hours."

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah earlier urged restraint after Tuesday's kidnappings sparked protests by thousands of people here.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah urged restraint on Tuesday after a group of Shiite Muslim Lebanese men were kidnapped by rebels in Syria while returning home from a pilgrimage in Iran.

"I call on everyone to show restraint," Nasrallah said in televised address after protesters blocked roads in Beirut’s southern suburbs to condemn the kidnap operation.

The Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc noted on Tuesday that the government has demonstrated in the past few months a “complete inability to maintain the security of the people.”

It demanded in a statement after its weekly meeting “Prime Minister Najib Miqati to immediately resign in order for stability to be restored in Lebanon.”

The rebel Free Syrian Army on Tuesday abducted 16 Lebanese men in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo who were on their way back from a pilgrimage trip to Iran.

“Buses belonging to the Badr al-Kobra and Jannat al-Redwan pilgrimage campaigns were ambushed in Aleppo shortly after crossing the Syrian-Turkish border,” al-Jadeed television reported.

Free Patriotic Movement MP Michel Aoun slammed on Tuesday the sides that criticized the army’s role in the Kweikhat incident that led to the death of Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Wahed on Sunday, saying that they will regret their words.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “It’s unacceptable to arrest the soldiers after the incident.”

The World Food Program on Tuesday started distributing food to 12,500 Syrians in Jordan, where tens of thousands of refugees have fled from President Bashar Assad's forces.

"The food packages, including rice, sugar, vegetable oil and lentil, are being distributed with the help of Jordan Red Crescent," the U.N. agency said in a statement carried by state-run Petra news agency.

The Israeli army’s deputy chief of staff, Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh, expressed fears on Tuesday that the Syrian regime could transfer to Hizbullah advanced weaponry that it is still in control of.

"The missile, rocket and chemical capabilities are remarkably still under the control of the current regime," The Jerusalem Post quoted Naveh as telling a defense conference.