Syria's armed opposition is carrying out serious human rights abuses, including kidnapping, torture and execution of security force members and government supporters, a rights group said Tuesday.

"The Syrian government's brutal tactics cannot justify abuses by armed opposition groups," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday that the situation in Syria has become unacceptable and called on the Security Council to unite on the issue.

"The situation in Syria has become an unacceptable and intolerable situation," Ban said in Bogor, Indonesia, where he addressed the country's peacekeepers working for the U.N.

Syrian security forces on Monday killed 30 people across the country, activists said, following unprecedented pre-dawn deadly clashes in the heart of the capital Damascus.

Nine people were killed in Deir al-Zour, six in Daraa, three in Hama, three in Idlib, three in Aleppo, three in the Damascus suburbs of Qatana and Douma, two in al-Qameshli and one in Homs, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

France on Monday proposed a U.N. Security Council statement backing U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's mission to end bloodshed in Syria and ease the international deadlock over the crisis.

With Annan and other U.N. efforts to halt the killing and gain humanitarian access already meeting resistance from President Bashar al-Assad, envoys said it had become urgent to send a "strong message" to the Damascus government.

Russia called on Syria Monday to immediately accept demands by the International Committee for the Red Cross for a daily two-hour humanitarian truce after talks with the Geneva-based body's head.

The crucial backing from Moscow to exert stronger pressure on its Soviet-era ally came after ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger huddled with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for about 90 minutes.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour stated on Monday that the developments in Syria are not linked to the country’s opposition, reported the National News Agency.

He said: “The crisis is an excuse to settle scores with the ruling regime.”

Turkey is working relentlessly to locate and repatriate two journalists missing in Syria for about 10 days, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Monday, amid reports one of them had been tortured.

"We sadly do not know where they are and we do not have any confirmed information. But we are working round the clock to find them and bring them back to Turkey safe and sound," he told a news conference.

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday he felt encouraged by Russia's position on Syria after trying to secure stronger pressure from Moscow on its Soviet-era ally.

ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger huddled with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for about 90 minutes before flying to Brussels to ask NATO members to exert similar influence with Syria's rebel forces.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat rejected on Monday Syrian President Bashar Assad’s remarks that his regime will remain, “but Syria will be divided.”

He said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa magazine: “The political solution that calls for the end of the Syrian regime is the only way to settle the crisis.”

Two more generals have fled Syria and linked up with rebels trying to overthrow President Bashar Assad's regime in Damascus, a Turkish diplomat said on Monday.

The latest defections mean a total of nine generals have deserted since the revolt against Assad's rule erupted a year ago, many of them seeking refuge in neighboring Turkey.