Arab and Western countries opposed to President Bashar Assad are to recognize an opposition bloc as the sole representative of Syrians, according to a statement seen by Agence France Presse on Wednesday.

The declaration to be issued Wednesday at a "Friends of Syria" meeting in Morocco coincides with battlefield gains by jihadists fighting Assad's forces, and a rapidly deteriorating refugee situation as winter sets in.

First Military Investigation Judge Riyad Abu Ghida set January 14, 2013 as the dates for questioning Syrian officials linked to the case of former Minister Michel Samaha, various media outlets reported on Wednesday.

Syrian security chief Ali Mamlouk and a colonel identified only as Adnan have been summoned to the January hearing.

A key mainstream Syrian rebel commander condemned on Wednesday a US decision to blacklist the jihadist Al-Nusra Front as a "terrorist organization."

"We reject this decision," Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, head of the Free Syrian Army in the battleground northern province of Aleppo, told Agence France Presse.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri described on Wednesday Syrian President Bashar Assad as a “beast,” who should be brought to trial for taking part in assassinations and sending explosives to Lebanon.

“Assad is a beast who has lost humanitarian and political ethics” and will be eventually held accountable by the Syrian people, Hariri said in a statement issued by his press office in response to Syrian arrest warrants issued against him along with al-Mustaqbal bloc MP Oqab Saqr and Syrian opposition member Louay al-Meqdad on charges of “arming and financing terrorist groups in Syria.”

President Barack Obama proclaimed Syria's newly reframed opposition as the "legitimate" representative of the nation's people Tuesday, in the most significant U.S. intervention in a brutal civil war.

As Washington cranked up pressure on beleaguered President Bashar Assad, the Obama administration also blacklisted the al-Qaida-linked Al-Nusra Front, which officials here fear seeks to hijack the revolution, as a terrorist group.

The Friends of Syria nations opposed to President Bashar Assad meet in Morocco on Wednesday to look afresh at how to resolve the deepening crisis and support the new opposition group after it won official U.S. backing.

The meeting in Marrakesh coincides with a rapidly deteriorating refugee situation as winter sets in, and gains in the battlefield by a key rebel group suspected of links to al-Qaida.

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc MP Oqab Saqr considered on Tuesday the arrest warrant issued against him by the Syrian regime “a source of pride coming from this era's stupidity and its assassin”.

"Issuing these warrants is a clear proof of the Syrian regime's involvement in the fabrication of the recordings' case,” Saqr said in a released statement.

Scores of civilians from President Bashar Assad's minority sect were reported killed Tuesday as Washington blacklisted an al-Qaida-linked rebel group it accuses of hijacking the uprising in Syria.

Bomb attacks in the village of Aqrab in the central province of Hama killed or wounded at least 125 civilians, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which could not immediately give a breakdown of the casualties.

Syria issued on Tuesday arrest warrants against former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Mustaqbal MP Oqab Saqr, and Syrian opposition member Louay al-Meqdad.

MTV said the arrest warrants were issued on charges of “arming and financing terrorist groups in Syria.”

The United States Tuesday blacklisted the Al-Nusra Front, a rebel group in Syria linked to Al-Qaida in Iraq, accusing it of being a terror group trying to "hijack" the legitimate struggle of the Syrian rebels.

In designating the group a foreign terrorist organization, the State Department said that while al-Nusra portrayed itself as part of the legitimate Syrian opposition, "it is, in fact, an attempt by AQI to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes."