Rebels seized control of the historic Umayyad Mosque in Syria's second city of Aleppo on Thursday after several days of fierce clashes that damaged the building, a watchdog reported.

State news agency SANA, meanwhile, said a car bomb exploded in a regime-held suburb of the central city of Homs, killing one person and wounding 24 others.

The United States said on Thursday it would for the first time provide direct aid to Syrian rebels, but not the arms they had hoped for, as well as $60 million in extra assistance to the political opposition.

After talks with European and Arab partners and the opposition National Coalition in Rome, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would provide aid to fighters in the form of food and medical assistance.

Sitting on the fringes of upheaval in the Middle East, Lebanon's capital Beirut has become the scene of experimental music-making by Khat Thaleth, a group of rappers out to take the revolts that started during the Arab Spring to the next level.

The collective has members from around the region -- ranging from Tunisia, birthplace of the Arab uprising, to the Palestinian refugee camps of Lebanon -- and vocalizes the realities of a new generation carrying the baggage of the past.

Al-Mustaqbal bloc leader Fouad Saniora has informed President Michel Suleiman that the March 14 opposition alliance is preparing a study on ways to protect the border with Syria.

Sources close to Saniora said the MP stressed to Suleiman that “the security situation on the border with Syria requires urgent action to control it by deploying the army” to avoid the spread of the security tension to other areas.

Lebanese leaders must adhere to their declared neutrality on the Syrian civil war amid warnings that the fighting could spill over the border, U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon warned Wednesday.

"The reported involvement of certain Lebanese elements in the conflict in Syria is contrary to Lebanon's policy of disassociation," Ban said in a report to the U.N. Security Council on the implementation of resolution 1701.

The rebel Free Syrian Army stated on Wednesday that it is not seeking to start a military confrontation with Hizbullah on the Lebanese border, stressing however, that it will respond to any attack by the party.

"I have personally asked President Michel Suleiman to intervene and prevent Hizbullah from bombing our locations,” FSA chief of staff General Selim Idriss revealed during an interview on Future television.

The lack of clear leader among Syria's opposition is no reason to maintain support for the "cruel" regime of President Bashar Assad, Turkey's prime minister said Wednesday.

"The international community thus far unfortunately has not taken the kind of position it was expected to take," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a U.N. event in Vienna.

Iraq's prime minister warned Wednesday that a victory for Syria's rebels will spark sectarian wars in Lebanon and Iraq and will create a new haven for al-Qaida that would destabilize the region.

The comments by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in an interview with The Associated Press marked one of his strongest warnings yet about the turmoil that toppling Syrian President Bashar Assad could create in the Middle East.

The Syrian regime has decided to renew the passports of any of nationals in embassies abroad, in an apparent concession to the opposition, according to documents seen by Agence France Presse.

The interior ministry said in a circular that it has authorized "the renewal for two to four years of passports and travel documents belonging to Syrian citizens abroad".

A stray mortar shell landed Wednesday in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, the army said, while also reporting that six wounded Syrians receiving treatment in Israel have been discharged from hospital.

"We found a shell in the central Golan Heights," a military spokesman said after troops saw smoke rising near an Israeli town in the central sector of the strategic plateau which borders war-torn Syria.