Popular Syrian comedian Yassin Bakush was killed on Sunday after his car was hit by a shell in an area of war-torn southern Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Anti-regime activists blamed the Syrian army for his death, and distributed via the Internet an amateur video of the body of a man believed to be Bakush, along with images of his passport and identity card.

French freelance photographer Olivier Voisin, who was seriously wounded in Syria on Thursday, has died of his wounds after surgery in Turkey, the foreign ministry said.

"We confirm his death," a ministry spokeswoman said on Sunday. Voisin, 38, had suffered head and arm injuries from shrapnel when a shell exploded near Idlib in northern Syria.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati on Sunday condemned the cross-border shelling from Syria into border towns in northern Lebanon.

“We denounce the death of Lebanese citizens in incidents they have nothing to do with and we call on the relevant Syrian authorities to take the appropriate measures to prevent the recurrence of such incidents,” said Miqati in a statement distributed by his office.

Syrian rebels closed in on a police academy in the town of Khan al-Assal in Aleppo province on Sunday, as regime warplanes bombarded their positions there, a watchdog said.

"Should they take the academy building, the whole of northern Aleppo province will fall out of regime control," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that his country will "not remain silent" over Syrian President Bashar Assad's "crimes" against his own people.

"Every day a large number of innocent children and women fall dead in Syria," Erdogan said in a speech at the Government Communication Forum in the United Arab Emirates.

President Michel Suleiman on Sunday urged the “Syrian side” to refrain from opening fire and shelling Lebanon after two Lebanese were killed on the northern border with Syria.

Suleiman “expressed regret” at the death of Lebanese from “military operations near the Lebanese border,” said a statement issued by Baabda palace.

The United States strongly condemned Saturday a series of missile strikes that killed dozens of people in Syria's second city Aleppo.

Around 58 people were killed and 150 wounded in missile strikes on the Tariq al-Bab district on Friday, according the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Syria's opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib on Saturday slammed world governments for failing to act to stop the bloodshed in Syria, nearly two years into a war that has left some 70,000 people dead.

Khatib made the remarks as he took part in Cairo in a demonstration which he described as "a message of protest to all governments of the world, Arab and non-Arab, that can see how the Syrian people are being killed, while they merely look on."

Britain on Saturday urged Syria's umbrella opposition to reconsider pulling out of international meetings on the crisis, insisting "now is not the time to give up" on talks.

The National Coalition withdrew from the meetings in protest about the international "silence", condemning world powers for failing to stop the slaughter in Syria, as missiles killed at least 29 in the second city of Aleppo.

Around 150 Kurdish women in the war-wracked northern Syrian province of Aleppo have set up a fighting battalion, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

"The Kurdish popular committees have set up the first women's battalion, comprising some 150 women fighters. The battalion is named the Martyr Rokan Battalion," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.