Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday cautioned against attempts to circumvent the authority of the United Nations as the West seeks to secure Moscow's support in the Syria crisis.

"There's a need to eliminate any loopholes allowing (nations) to act in circumvention of the authority of the Security Council and use force without its approval," Medvedev told a European security conference in Moscow.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan will travel this weekend to Moscow and Beijing to discuss the crisis in Syria, his spokesman said Friday, adding that a team sent to Damascus has returned.

The team is back after "three days of intensive talks with Syrian authorities on urgent steps to implement" Annan's proposals on halting the violence.

Hundreds of people took part in night-time protests in the Syrian capital, opposition activists said Friday, ahead of "Damascus, here we come" demonstrations called for across the country.

"Bomb us instead of Daraa, Homs, and Hama," cities where hundreds of civilians have reportedly been killed in a crackdown on anti-regime protests, the demonstrators chanted in Rokneddine neighborhood, according to activists.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel has appeased fears on the growing clashes and gunfire in Syrian towns bordering Lebanon but warned against any attempt by Syrian refugees to engage in political activity against their country’s rule.

In remarks to pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat daily on Friday, Charbel said: “There are no political intentions behind what’s going on the border between Lebanon and Syria from time to time.”

A U.N. Security Council peace call for Syria has "merit" but "does not respond to the real needs of the Syrian people", the head of main opposition group the Syrian National Council said Thursday.

"The Syrian National Council supports any measure intended to stop the daily slaughter that the Syrian people have lived with for months," SNC president Burhan Ghalioun told Agence France Presse in Paris.

Fierce clashes erupted in Syria on Thursday, with a busload of fleeing civilians among 110 killed, as President Bashar al-Assad's foes described a U.N. Security Council peace call as toothless.

The army attacked a string of towns, while rebel fighters struck military posts in several provinces and announced a command structure to coordinate hit-and-run strikes in and around Damascus.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend the next "Friends of Syria" talks in Turkey, an official said Thursday, amid efforts to end the Syrian regime's bloody year-old crackdown.

Clinton will join the April 1 talks in Istanbul after she took part in the first such meeting in Tunis last month that drew 60 countries, including Turkey, Arab states and western powers, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

An international action plan is needed to stop the "human tragedy" in Syria, Turkey's foreign minister said Thursday after a U.N. Security Council statement calling for all sides to end violence.

"In addition to a common message we also have to develop a joint plan of action," Ahmet Davutoglu said after talks in Vienna with his Austrian counterpart ahead of an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels that he will attend.

Syria's main opposition group on Thursday said a U.N. statement calling for all parties to end violence in Syria will simply give the regime more time to continue killing its own people.

"Such statements, issued amid continued killings, offer the regime the opportunity to push ahead with its repression in order to crush the revolt by the Syrian people," said Samir Nashar, member of the executive committee of the Syrian National Council.

Military Examining Magistrate Imad al-Zain issued an arrest warrant on Thursday against a Lebanese national on charges of smuggling weapons to the Free Syrian Army, reported the National News Agency.

It said that Hussein A. was arrested after attempting to smuggle the arms through the border region of al-Qaa in the Bekaa.