Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri proposed to pay a ransom to the abductors of the 11 Lebanese pilgrims in exchange for their release, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Monday.

The daily said that Hariri’s proposal facilitated negotiations with the kidnappers.

An audio recording for 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims abducted in Syria will be released soon, the International Human Rights Organization and a Syrian mediator said, as outgoing Syrian opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun announced receiving information claiming that the abductees might comprise non-civilian individuals.

Rebel Brig. Gen. Hussameddine al-Awwak, who described himself as a mediator, told LBC that the abductees comprise five Hizbullah commanders, including a man called Hussein Hammoud, noting that their bus was intercepted by the kidnappers for making several stops near Free Syrian Army bases and because the passengers had “suspicious surveillance binoculars.”

The 11 Lebanese pilgrims abducted in Aleppo are in a good condition and will be released by tomorrow night, spokesman of the Syrian al-Ahrar party Naser Doqmaq revealed on Saturday.

“The abducted Lebanese are in a good condition but the latest developments in Syria postponed their release,” Doqmaq said in statement.

Hundreds of Kuwaitis including several MPs rallied outside the Syrian embassy on Saturday to condemn a reported massacre in the Syrian town of Houla and to demand the arming of the rebel Free Syrian Army.

Islamist MP Jamaan al-Harbash urged Turkey and all Arab states in the Gulf to act to provide protection for Syrian civilians, warning that if the governments cannot do so "they should open the door for people to fight."

Prime Minister Najib Miqati postponed his scheduled visit to Turkey on Saturday to follow up the abduction of the 11 pilgrims in Syria.

“I have decided to postpone my visit as the contacts and the efforts to release the abducted Lebanese are still ongoing,” Miqati said in a statement issued by his press office.

Advisor to the Turkish president, Irshad Hormuzlu, denied on Saturday reports that Turkey had informed Lebanese authorities that the 11 Lebanese pilgrims abducted in Syria have entered Turkey, reported Voice of Lebanon radio.

He told VDL: “There is no definite information that they have entered Turkey.”

The families of the pilgrims abducted in Syria issued a statement on Saturday condemning the delay of their release, holding Turkey responsible for it.

They held it responsible for maintaining the pilgrims’ safety and “ensuring their safe return to Lebanon as soon as possible.”

Helicopter gunships on Friday fired on rebel positions in the Latakia area of northwestern Syria, near the Turkish border, wounding at least 20 people, a monitoring group said.

"This is the first time that this area, known as the Mountain of the Kurds, has been the target of air strikes," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.

A suicide bomb squad killed a police officer and wounded nearly a dozen people in central Turkey on Friday after it drove into a police station and opened fire, reports said.

Three men sped their vehicle into a police station in the city of Kayseri, where they fired weapons before one of the attackers set off a bomb strapped to his body, it said.

Three Kurdish rebels were killed Tuesday in a gunbattle with security forces in southeastern Turkey, Turkish media said Wednesday.

The firefight erupted Tuesday around 16:05 GMT in a rural area near the town of Ovacik in Tunceli province; Anatolia news agency cited the provincial governor's office as saying.