Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday blamed conspirators for deadly unrest in Syria but failed to lift emergency rule or offer other concessions in his first speech since protests demanding greater freedoms erupted earlier this month.

Assad said his country was facing a "major conspiracy" plotted by "nearby and distant countries."

Facebook group The Syria Revolution 2011, which has emerged as the motor behind demonstrations demanding "freedom" in Syria, is calling for sit-ins across the country Friday despite a bid by the state to reach out to protesters.

"The Friday of Martyrs. In all governorates, in all mosques, in all squares. An overnight sit-in until our demands are met -- all our demands," read a banner poster as the group's profile picture.

Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Naji Otri on Tuesday tendered his government's resignation to President Bashar al-Assad, who promptly re-appointed him caretaker premier, state media reported.

"President Bashar al-Assad today accepted the resignation of the government of Mohammed Naji Otri and designated it to act in a caretaker capacity pending the formation of a new cabinet," state-run news agency SANA said.

Some 300 Syrian laborers demonstrated in front of their country's embassy in Beirut on Monday to express their support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"We are with Assad and against any change," said protester Mohammed Hilal, 18, one of tens of thousands of laborers employed in Lebanon, mainly in the construction sector.

Syria's parliament has asked President Bashar al-Assad to explain in detail a string of reforms promised in response to a wave of popular dissent across the country, an MP said Monday.

"On Sunday night, MPs requested that the president clarify the measures that authorities have announced and urged him to address parliament and explain," MP Mohammed Habash told Agence France Presse.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday said the United States currently has no intention of launching a military intervention in Syria, despite a violent crackdown that has left dozens of protesters dead.

Asked on CBS television's "Face the Nation" program if Washington is planning military action similar to that launched in Libya, Clinton answered that it is not.

Syrian authorities have decided to lift emergency rule, a presidential adviser told Agence France Presse on Sunday as residents of the northern city of Latakia buried victims of a wave of unrest that has put President Bashar al-Assad under unprecedented pressure.

Troops have deployed in Latakia, a religiously diverse port city 350 kilometers northwest of Damascus, where at least 12 people have been killed by gunfire involving snipers since Friday.

A total of 17 people were killed Friday when a demonstration headed to the Syrian protest city of Daraa was raked by gunfire, a human rights activist said.

"Seventeen protesters were killed in a shooting in the village of Sanamen as they were headed toward Daraa," a tribal town 100 kilometers south of Damascus, he told Agence France Presse, requesting anonymity.

Protests spread in Syria on Friday from their southern epicenter of Daraa to Damascus and a town south of the capital, where authorities moved to arrest at least five demonstrators.

Hundreds of people marched from Omayyed mosque in the centre of Damascus' Old City along Souk Al-Hamadiyeh Street chanting: "Daraa is Syria" and "We will sacrifice ourselves for Syria."

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government on Thursday said it may scrap an emergency law in place since 1963 and announced the release of all activists detained this month, following a week of deadly protests in the south.

"Under a directive by President Bashar al-Assad, all those detained in recent events have been freed," state television reported.