Hundreds of students gathered amid tight security in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Friday to demand that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad step down.

"Take our blood if you want, but go," chanted around 400 students from the state-run Lebanese University -- including 50 Syrians -- who had gathered in the port city of Tripoli.

The Syrian leadership stressed to President Michel Suleiman that no side will in no way attempt to weaken his position or his pivotal role in forming a government, reported al-Liwa newspaper on Friday.

This message was delivered by caretaker minister Wael Abu Faour to the president from Progressives Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat who met with Syrian President Bashar Assad on Thursday.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the Syrian regime of perpetrating an "atrocity" against anti-government demonstrators, the Anatolia news agency reported Friday.

"I talked to Mr. Assad (Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) four or five days ago. ... But they underestimate the situation," Erdogan told Anatolia.

Britain said Thursday it stood by allegations that Iran is helping Syria violently crush protests, after the British envoy in Tehran was summoned to the foreign ministry over the claims.

Iranian state television earlier reported that officials had told British Charge d'Affaires Jane Marriott that the comments by Foreign Minister William Hague on Tuesday were "based on a series of lies."

Syrian companies linked to President Bashar al-Assad's regime may be next to be hit by European Union sanctions, diplomatic sources said Wednesday.

"There is talk of strengthening sanctions against Syria with new measures, but there is no text as yet on the table," a European diplomat who asked not to be identified told Agence France Presse.

Western powers on Tuesday stepped up moves for a U.N. Security Council vote condemning Syria's crackdown on opposition protests, despite strong opposition from Russia and China.

France, Britain and the United States are considering pressing for a vote by the 15-member Security Council on a resolution that could embarrass Russia and China by forcing them into a veto.

Some 700 Syrians and Lebanese staged a rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Saturday to show their support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Syrian residents of Lebanon organized the demonstration in the southern suburb of Hay al-Sellum, a bastion of Hizbullah, to display their support for Assad and his late father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad.

Thousands-strong funeral processions filed out of mosques and past closed shops in the central Syrian city of Hama on Saturday, as mourners buried dozens of protesters shot dead by security forces a day before.

A Syrian human rights activist increased Friday's death toll among protesters to 63, up from an initial count of 48. Most of the dead were killed in Hama after troops opened fire on crowds.

Syrian security forces shot dead at least 25 people while dispersing tens of thousands of demonstrators in the central city of Hama on Friday, activists said, as anti-regime protests spread to Damascus.

Activists in the city told Agence France Presse by telephone that dozens of other people were wounded.

Syrian opposition groups called Thursday for President Bashar al-Assad's immediate resignation, in a joint declaration at the end of a two-day meeting in Turkey.

The statement, read out in Arabic in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya, urged the "immediate resignation of President Bashar al-Assad from all functions he occupies" and asked him to "leave his powers to a vice-president," without specifying whom it was referring to.