Islamist rebels warned two Christian towns on Saturday they will be attacked if they do not evict regime forces, as the new Greek Orthodox patriarch said Syria's often-fearful Christians will stay put and urged a peaceful end to the conflict.

Yet a key opposition group said Syria's conflict is not sectarian, contradicting warnings this week by a U.N. team that increasing sectarianism is threatening whole communities.

A suspicious car was located on Saturday near the residence of former Alawite MP Ali Eid in the Akkar town of of Hekr al-Daheri, the state-run National News Agency reported.

An Internal Security Forces unit arrived swiftly at the scene to search the Mercedes.

A cameraman for Syrian state television has been gunned down outside his home in Damascus, the broadcaster reported on Saturday, blaming the attack on "terrorists.”

"Our colleague Haidar al-Sumudi, cameraman for Syrian Arab Television, was shot dead by an armed terrorist group outside his home in Kfar Sousa in Damascus," the television said, without specifying when the attack took place.

Syrian authorities handed over Lebanon on Saturday three more bodies of Salafists killed in an ambush by regime troops in Tall Kalakh last month, in the third and last round of transfer of corpses from Syria.

The bodies of Malek al-Hajj Deeb, Abdul Hakim Ibrahim, and Hussein Srour were transferred from Syria through the Arida border crossing in northern Lebanon.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat criticized on Saturday Arab leaders for building towers in the desert rather than helping the Palestinian people and the refugees.

“Arabs should dedicate a small amount of their huge resources to serve the Palestinian people rather than build in the deserts delusive towers that have no value and will turn into sand once oil is depleted,” Jumblat told As Safir daily.

An attack by Syrian rebels on an electricity pylon on Friday caused a power outage in several areas of Damascus, state television said.

"A group of terrorists destroyed a transmission tower, leading to a power cut," said the broadcaster, using the regime's standard terminology for rebels fighting to unseat President Bashar Assad.

New clashes between pro- and anti-Damascus fighters erupted in a Palestinian camp in south Damascus on Friday, hours after the return of thousands of people who fled earlier violence, a monitoring group said.

"The fresh battles pitted fighters from the pro-regime popular committees against Syrian and Palestinian rebels opposed to President Bashar Assad," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.

A psychiatric hospital on the front line in Syria's war-ravaged second city of Aleppo, home to some 60 patients, has suffered from chronic shortages since fighting first broke out in July.

"They've had no medication for months, and it gets worse each day. There's no light, no heating, not even running water -- and the patients have hardly anything to eat," said nurse Abu Abdo, who helps to run Dar al-Ajaza hospital.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour was informed on Friday by Syrian authorities that they will hand over to Lebanon the corpses of three fighters killed in Tall Kalakh in November, reported the National News Agency.

The three Lebanese fighters have been identified as Malek al-Hajj Deeb, Abdul Karim Ibrahim, and Hassan Srour.

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia does not want "chaos" in Syria and that it looked forward to seeing a democratic regime in the war-torn nation.

"We will try to pursue the public order in Syria and look forward to a democratic regime in Syria because this country is close to our borders," he said at a news conference closing an EU-Russia summit, according to an English translation of his words.