A video posted online purportedly shows Syrian soldiers taking a break from the country's civil war by bopping around to American R&B star Usher's hit song "Yeah!"

The soldiers dressed in camouflage combat gear — some armed with automatic rifles or rocket-propelled grenades poking out of their flak jackets — form a conga line and shimmy past the camera grinning.

More than half of the estimated 300,000 Syrian refugees who have fled to Lebanon are not receiving the medical treatment they need because of high costs, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Thursday.

In a report entitled "Misery beyond the war zone," MSF gave the results of a survey carried out in the southern city of Sidon, the eastern Bekaa Valley and the northern city of Tripoli, where its teams are providing free medical care.

President Michel Suleiman said Thursday there are instructions not to deport any Syrian to his home country in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“The instructions are not to deport any Syrian to Syria in conformity with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said Suleiman on twitter.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he wants his allies in the Syrian regime to negotiate with the opposition for the staging of a free election, in an interview with Egyptian state television.

The two sides should "sit at the negotiations table to find a solution to the crisis, through mutual understanding," Ahmadinejad, who is on a visit to Egypt, said in the interview broadcast late Wednesday.

Leaders of Islamic states called for a peaceful resolution to the Syrian conflict through "serious dialogue" between the regime and its foes, as Iran voiced reservations, at a summit in Cairo on Thursday.

Leaders and representatives of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation also said they support efforts to help Mali "regain its territorial integrity," an apparent reference to France's military intervention in the African country.

Troops overran a rebel town and were locked in a second day of fierce fighting around Damascus on Thursday, a watchdog said, as Syria's opposition leader threatened to withdraw his peace initiative.

Muslim leaders at a summit in the Egyptian capital, meanwhile, worked on a draft resolution calling for "serious dialogue" between the opposition and government officials.

Syria's opposition coalition is seeking to take the country's U.N. seat from President Bashar Assad's government, its new U.S. representative said Wednesday.

Syrian National Council leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib has also received an invitation from the U.S. government to visit Washington and could seek meetings with top U.N. officials, coalition envoy Najib Ghadbian told Agence France Presse.

U.S. officials Wednesday urged international donors to make good on pledges of more than $1.5 billion in aid for Syrians, warning that millions of people remained in dire need as the war rumbles on.

There are now some 763,000 refugees who have fled Syria for neighboring countries, while another 2.5 million are estimated to have been displaced inside the country.

Opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib demanded all women held in Syrian prisons be freed by Sunday, or the regime will lose its chance for dialogue, in an interview with BBC Arabic.

"These things cannot wait until judgment day. The demand that the women are released means that if there is one single woman still in prison in Syria on Sunday, I consider that the regime has rejected my initiative," the National Coalition leader said.

The Syrian army launched an "all-out offensive" on Damascus province on Wednesday, a security official said, as a watchdog reported the fiercest bombardments and fighting in the region for months.

"The province was bombed very badly, in attacks that have not been seen in months. There was also very heavy fighting," said Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.