Syria’s first lady Asma Assad told a friend that she was the “real dictator” in the family, according to leaked emails, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

Her correspondence with President Bashar Assad, his aides, friends and family portray her as highly supportive of her husband, the daily added.

Israeli Army officers believe that Syria has been arming and training Hizbullah fighters in the use of advanced antiaircraft weapons in recent months, which would increase the potential of escalation in Lebanon, the Haaretz daily reported.

"The potential of escalation in Lebanon is huge, and Hizbullah continues to strengthen with regard to long-range weaponry and potential 'surprises' on the battlefield," a senior Israeli officer in the Northern Command said.

Three "terrorists" and a member of Syria's security forces were killed in a clash in a district of Damascus on Monday, state television said.

"Three terrorists were killed and a fourth was arrested in the fighting between security forces and an armed terrorist gang sheltered in a house of a residential district," it said.

A top U.S. Department of the Treasury official is expected to urge Lebanon on Tuesday to abide by the U.S. and European Union sanctions imposed on Syria, Lebanese dailies said.

An Nahar newspaper quoted political sources as saying that Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen will urge Central Bank Governor Riyad Salameh and other high-ranking officials to prevent Lebanese banks from offering any support that would help the Assad regime escape the sanctions.

Technical experts from the U.N. and Organization of Islamic Cooperation are in Syria on a mission to assess the humanitarian impact of its year-long bloodshed, a senior OIC official said on Sunday.

"The joint OIC-U.N. mission entered Syria on Friday to carry out an evaluation of humanitarian aid," on a mission led by the Syrian government, its assistant secretary general, Atta al-Mannan Bakhit, told Agence France Presse.

The president of the International Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, is headed to Moscow for talks on the humanitarian situation in Syria, the ICRC said Sunday.

"Mr. Kellenberger will pay a one-day visit during which he will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov" on Monday, the International Committee for the Red Cross said in a statement.

Syria was hit by the third lethal car bombing of the weekend on Sunday as U.N. teams readied for a government-led humanitarian mission and to work to launch a monitoring operation to end a year of bloodshed.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in a statement, said the latest blast targeted political security offices in the northern city of Aleppo, killing three civilians and wounding more than 25 others.

Syrian security forces mounted operations on Sunday in the northern province of Aleppo, northwestern Idlib, the east's Deir Ezzor region, Daraa in the south and al-Raqqa in the northeast, killing at least 37 people across the country, activists said.

Five rebels from the Free Syrian Army and three children were among the 37 casualties, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

Some 200 Syrians fled to Turkey on Saturday, bringing to nearly 16,000 the number who have crossed the border to escape an ongoing government crackdown, Turkish Anatolia news agency said Sunday.

The refugees, including women and children, crossed into Hatay province from Syria's northwest Idlib province, where government troops have launched a crackdown on rebels.

Syria said Sunday that two deadly bomb blasts in Damascus were aimed at sabotaging peace efforts, as U.N. experts prepared to join a government-led humanitarian mission to devastated protest hubs.

"Yesterday's explosions were carried out by terrorists supported by foreign powers which finance and arm them," charged Al-Baath newspaper, mouthpiece of Syria's ruling party of the same name.