The army resumed shelling the central Syrian protest cities of Homs and Hama on Saturday, monitors reported, as international envoy Kofi Annan headed to Russia in the latest push for peace.

Mortar shells rained down on the flashpoint Khaldiyeh district of Homs continuously for two hours in the morning, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that it had no information about casualties.

The head of the takfiri network that has been recently discovered in Lebanon is currently residing in the Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, reported Voice of Lebanon radio on Saturday.

Jamaa al-Islamiyya official Bassam Hammoud told the radio that Abu Mohammed Toufic Taha is controlling three al-Qaida cells in Lebanon and he works for Majed al-Majed, a Saudi member of the terrorist group.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour announced that Lebanon must help Syria end its crisis because it is a “sister state” with which “we share special and historic ties that cannot be abandoned,” reported As Safir newspaper on Saturday.

He told the newspaper: “Lebanon will not recognize the Syrian National Council.”

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat demanded on Friday that the ruling Assad family in Syria be removed from the country.

He said: “Anyone who believes that a settlement can be reached with the Assad family is crazy.”

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano moved Friday to allow Syrians in the United States to stay beyond their visas and avoid the risk of returning to their violence-torn country.

Napolitano said in a statement that, "in light of deteriorating conditions in Syria," the Department of Homeland Security will be designating Syria temporary protected status (TPS) for Syrians currently in the United States.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour on Friday denied that the Syrian army had on Wednesday shelled Lebanese border areas, noting that it might have been “pursuing armed men.”

“There are no Syrian violations against Lebanese sovereignty, but rather military operations, and I don’t believe that the Syrian army is shelling Lebanese areas and the (Lebanese) army has not recorded any such incident,” Mansour told MTV.

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh on Friday noted that Lebanon’s banking sector is being targeted by “suspicious campaigns,” stressing that David Cohen, U.S. Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, had not addressed any “ultimatums or warnings” to the sector during his recent visit to Lebanon.

“Some are displeased over the success of Lebanese banks in the region, but the sector is robust and enjoys confidence despite being subjected to suspicious campaigns,” Salameh said in an interview on Al-Manar television.

Nearly 1,000 Syrians demonstrated Friday in the Jordanian capital against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, demanding "freedom" in the neighboring country.

"We will not bow. God damn you Bashar," read a banner carried by the demonstrators, outside the Syrian embassy in western Amman.

At least 22 civilians, three regime troops and a rebel were killed on Friday in Syria as government forces bombed towns and clashed with rebels in several areas of Syria and tens of thousands of people took part in "Damascus, here we come" demonstrations, monitors and activists said.

Security forces killed 11 people in Homs, four in Daraa, three in Idlib, a person in Latakia, one in Deir al-Zour, one in Aleppo and another in al-Raqq, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

The United Nations Friday launched an appeal for 84 million dollars (63 million euros) to help Syrian refugees who have fled abroad because of the current fighting.

Turkey has taken in some 17,000 refugees, Lebanon 16,000, Jordan about 8,500, with Iraq welcoming an unknown number, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement.