The case of the nine Lebanese abductees in Syria's Aazaz will witness an important positive breakthrough within the next 10 days, a spokesman for the Northern Storm Brigade said on Friday.

And as he declined to clarify the nature of the declared breakthrough, the spokesman told Turkey's Anatolia news agency that “a list containing the names of dozens of Syrian women detainees will be submitted soon to the Syrian regime through mediators, in order to swap them for the nine Lebanese nationals.”

Hizbullah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem stressed on Friday that the Lebanese people can handle their own affairs without political directions from any power.

He said addressing U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly: “We do not need your advice over the parliamentary elections or any other issue.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel telephoned President Michel Suleiman, lauding his role in preserving stability in Lebanon and hoping that a new cabinet would be formed soon, Baabda palace said Friday.

A presidential statement said that Merkel also expressed support to Lebanon's call for a U.N.-led international conference to discuss the issue of Syrian refugees.

Russia on Friday called the deployment of U.S. troops in Jordan over the Syria crisis an unconstructive step that threatens to expand the conflict as the kingdom's Islamist opposition said Amman's government should review its decision.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel revealed Wednesday that 150 U.S. military specialists had been deployed in Jordan since last year and that he had ordered the army to bolster the mission by bringing the total American presence to more than 200 troops.

A Syrian civil servant has been gunned down in the upscale Damascus neighborhood of Mazzeh, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday.

Ali Ballane, public relations director at the ministry of social affairs, was shot by four armed men at the Kanun restaurant on Thursday evening, said the Observatory which relies on a network of activists and doctors on the ground.

Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel expressed concern on Friday after the security situation in the country became the “captive” of the strong rhetoric by politicians.

“Citizens fear that the country might slip over into sedition,” Charbel said.

The relatives of the abducted Lebanese pilgrims in Syria's Aazaz since May last year briefly erected on Friday a tent near Turkish airlines in al-Azarieh building in downtown Beirut, preventing employees from entering its offices.

On their second day of protests near the Turkish airlines offices, the families of the nine men called on President Michel Suleiman to take a firm stance concerning the matter and to press Turkish authorities to resolve this crisis.

Russian ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin expressed fear on Friday over attempts to drag the country into a sectarian strife, pointing out that the ongoing crisis in the neighboring country Syria might instigate the spread of al-Qaida members in Lebanon.

“The turmoil in Syria has a negative impact on Lebanon, in particular, concerning the cross-border smuggling of arms and fighters between the two countries,” Zasypkin said in an interview with As Safir newspaper.

U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating accounts from European allies that Syria may have used chemical weapons in its war against opposition forces, a senior U.S. official said Thursday.

There were indications a "deeply suspicious" agent may have been used in recent battles in Syria but spy services were still evaluating the information and had not reached a definitive conclusion, the official told Agence France Presse.

Nearly seven million people need humanitarian assistance in Syria, a senior United Nations official said Thursday, criticizing Damascus for hampering aid distribution.

"The needs are growing rapidly and are most severe in the conflict and opposition-controlled areas" of the civil-war ravaged country, the global body's humanitarian chief Valerie Amos told the U.N. Security Council.