A Lebanese man has been killed in Syria while another has been abducted since 11 days in two separate incidents, LBCI television reported on Wednesday.

“Lebanese citizen Shamel Shammout was killed by gunfire in the Syrian area of Jdeidet Artouz and his body was transported to Lebanon,” LBCI said.

Turkey is in talks with the United Nations on ways to shelter thousands of refugees on Syrian soil and expects the world body to take concrete steps, its foreign minister said Wednesday.

"We expect the United Nations to step in for the protection of refugees inside Syria and if possible housing them in camps there," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.

Italy hosted international talks in Rome on Wednesday on the future of Syria after President Bashar Assad leaves power, the foreign ministry said.

The ministry's press office confirmed the talks were taking place but said they were being held behind closed doors with no access for journalists.

Saudi authorities beheaded by the sword a Syrian man on Wednesday after convicting him of murdering a bedouin, the interior ministry said.

Abeer Zaidan was found guilty of murdering Badr bin Murad al-Shimmari, who belonged to a nomadic tribe, the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius admitted Wednesday that plans to create buffer zones in Syria were "very complicated" and would require the imposition of partial no-fly zones.

Fabius said people displaced by the country's conflict needed to be protected through the creation of buffer zones but that logistical and diplomatic questions were complicating the issue.

Syrian rebels claimed on Wednesday they had destroyed five helicopters at a military airport between the northern cities of Aleppo and Idlib, after a watchdog reported fierce clashes there.

Abu Mossab, a rebel who participated in the attack, told Agence Francce Presse via Skype that the rebels had shelled the Taftanaz military airport with two captured military tanks and had destroyed five military helicopters. The claims could not immediately be independently verified.

Syria needs more time to end the conflict raging across the country, President Bashar Assad said in a television interview to be broadcast by pro-regime al-Dounia channel on Wednesday.

Assad also scoffed at an idea being championed by Turkey of creating buffer zones within Syria to receive those displaced by the conflict, in advance excerpts of the interview screened by the private channel.

Speaker Nabih Berri confirmed that Lebanon will chair the Arab League Ministerial Council in September, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Wednesday.

He told the newspaper: “This opportunity comes once every 11 years and Lebanon must not miss it.”

A car bomb rocked the funeral of two government loyalists in a Damascus suburb killing 27 people on Tuesday as the army kept up its bombardment of rebel strongholds in the east of the capital.

The bombing hit Jaramana, a mainly Druze and Christian town on the southeastern outskirts of Damascus that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described as generally supportive of the government of President Bashar Assad.

Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi revealed that the ministry is placing the finishing touches to the draft project to form the independent national body to uncover the fate of Lebanese missing persons, reported the daily An Nahar on Wednesday.

He told the daily that the project should be handed over to cabinet before the end of the week after taking into consideration the remarks of the state’s Shura council.