A large number of Syrians on Friday heeded a call by the authorities to join weekly Muslim prayers for security and gathered in mosques across the country, the state news agency SANA said.

"Popular participation was broad in the prayer in mosques across Syria for the return of safety and security to the homeland," SANA said, a day after a Muslim feast in which the authorities called for a "million-man prayer."

Syria's air force launched new raids on rebel-held towns east of Damascus on Friday, after clashes raged on the edges of a Palestinian refugee camp in the capital, a watchdog said.

The army pounded opposition-held areas of battered Homs in central Syria, as it stepped up a campaign to reclaim areas of "the capital of the revolution," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon made a fresh appeal to members of the Security Council on Thursday to overcome their divisions and find a solution to the bloody civil war in Syria.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ban said it would be an "abdication" of the world body's responsibilities if it fails to unify over the crisis that has claimed more than 60,000 lives.

Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad was Thursday shown on state television attending prayers at a mosque in a northern district of Damascus to mark the Prophet Mohammed's birthday.

The leader was shown in a live broadcast kneeling in al-Afram mosque flanked by Syria's Grand Mufti Ahmad Hassoun, the highest Sunni religious authority in the country, and the religious endowments minister.

Syria is unlikely to see peace in 2013 as the fighting in the strife-torn country edges closer to civil war, Iran's Ambassador to Baghdad Hassan Danaie-Far told AFP on Thursday.

In a grim assessment of nearly two years of conflict in Iraq's western neighbor, Danaie-Far said he believed that not all rebels fighting President Bashar Assad's forces can be called "terrorists," a term broadly used by the Syrian regime for insurgents.

Syrian troops bombarded besieged districts of Homs on Thursday, as clashes raged unabated in the west of the central city for the fifth day a row, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Six rebels were among seven people killed by regime shelling and overnight firefights in the Jobar district, the Britain-based watchdog said.

Syrian authorities have called for "million man prayers" at mosques on Friday to appeal for the re-establishment of security in the country, ravaged by 22 months of bloodshed, a minister said.

"Prayers will be held after Friday services in Syria's mosques with the appeal for a return to security and safety in the homeland," Minister of Religious Endowments Mohammed Abdel Settar said in a statement.

Lebanon will ask for 270 million dollars during a donor conference in Kuwait on January 30 to meet the demands of refugees escaping the violence in Syria, a ministerial source said Thursday.

The source told An Nahar newspaper that only 60 million dollars have been so far donated by some European countries.

The Free Syrian Army denied on Wednesday the death of the abductor of the 11 Lebanese pilgrims in Syria.

"Abu Ibrahim is still alive and he is being treated from a minor injury in a Turkish hospital,” FSA's Political and Media Coordinator Louay Meqdad told Future television.

NATO Patriot missiles deployed in Turkey to protect against a spillover of the conflict in neighboring Syria will be operational this weekend, a senior NATO officer said Wednesday.

"We expect to have an initial operating capability this weekend, that's what we're aiming at. This is when we will have the capability to defend some aspects of the population," said British Brigadier General Gary Deakin.