A man identifying himself as a senior foreign intelligence official has announced his defection from the ranks of the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad in a video statement posted on the Internet.

"I, Jumaa Farraj Jassem, head of Section 30 of the foreign service of the General Intelligence Directorate, announce my defection from this criminal regime, as I join the ranks of this blessed revolution," said the man.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel revealed that he will head to Doha on Tuesday to discuss with his Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalid al-Thani, the case of the abducted Lebanese pilgrims in Syria's Aazaz.

“I will discus with the Qatari interior minister the case of the remaining nine abductees and the role that his country can play to release the men,” Charbel said in comments to Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) on Saturday.

The outskirts of the Syrian capital were rocked by clashes early on Saturday a day after rebels seized a key regime airbase in the north, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Britain-based watchdog said two children and two men were killed when Mleha just southeast of Damascus was bombarded, and that two rebels battling forces loyal to President Bashar Assad were also killed there.

Russia called on Saturday for a political transition in Syria, as Switzerland prepared to petition the International Criminal Court to open a case on war crimes in the country.

Violence raged unabated with regime warplanes carrying air strike near the capital, a car bomb explosion in Damascus province and the murder of an athletics champion shot dead by gunmen, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

President Michel Suleiman will head the Lebanese delegation at a Kuwaiti summit for donor countries, which will be held at the end of January, reported the Kuwaiti al-Anba daily on Saturday.

An official Lebanese source told the daily that the decision was made soon after the Lebanese government approved a plan to tackle the case of refugees heading to Lebanon from Syria.

U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Friday expressed the urgent need to end the Syrian conflict after meeting with top U.S. and Russian officials, but reported no concrete advances towards a solution.

"We all stressed the need for a speedy end to the bloodshed and the destruction and all forms of violence in Syria," Brahimi told reporters in Geneva, following more than five hours of talks with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns.

Despite severe wintry conditions, thousands of Syrians gathered across the country for Friday demonstrations denouncing the "death camps", an allusion to the suffering of refugees living in tent settlements in neighboring countries, which this week were hit by snowstorms and floods.

The U.N. said that 612,134 Syrians had been registered as refugees in the region or were in the process of being registered, a sharp rise from the 509,550 announced on December 11.

The number of Syrian refugees registered in neighboring countries and North Africa has jumped by more than 100,000 in the past month to over 600,000, the U.N.'s refugee body said Friday.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said that as of Thursday, 612,134 Syrians had either been registered as refugees in neighboring countries or were in the process of being registered, up from 509,550 announced on December 11.

U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi was meeting with top U.S. and Russian officials Friday on the Syria crisis although there was little hope of a breakthrough.

Brahimi, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns were meeting at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva. They made no comment as they arrived for the closed-door talks.

Rebels Friday overran Taftanaz airbase in north Syria, a watchdog said, marking a significant advance

"The fighting at Taftanaz military airport ended at 11:00 am (0900 GMT) and the base is entirely in rebel hands," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.