Key opposition group the Syrian National Council on Sunday echoed Ankara's accusation that supporters of President Bashar Assad's regime were behind twin car bomb attacks in Turkey that killed dozens a day earlier.

"The Syrian National Council condemns in the strongest terms the cowardly crimes carried out by collaborators of the Syrian regime in the Turkish town of Reyhanli," said the group, an influential faction within the leading opposition National Council.

Israeli raids on Syrian targets at the weekend killed at least 42 soldiers, a watchdog said Monday, as U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon led calls for restraint to prevent the war spilling over borders.

"At least 42 soldiers were killed in the strikes, and another 100 who would usually be at the targeted sites remain unaccounted for" after the Israeli strikes near Damascus, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The U.N. Security Council expressed "grave concern" Thursday over cross-border attacks between Syria and Lebanon in a rare united declaration on the Syrian conflict.

The 15-member body, bitterly divided over the Syrian conflict, expressed "deep concern" over the fallout from the Syrian conflict on stability in Lebanon, in a statement released after closed talks.

Sources in the foreign ministry have not noticed any move to file a complaint with Damascus over the latest Syrian cross-border violations, the Central News Agency reported on Monday.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour “is currently outside the country,” the agency quoted informed sources as saying, a day after Prime Minister Najib Miqati asked the minister to “officially inform Syrian authorities of our rejection of this behavior and our demand that its recurrence be prevented.”

A cautious atmosphere is surrounding the northern village of Wadi Khaled as al-Hishe town residents are still mourning the death of Ahmed Shehab and Mohammed Hussein Azou, the National News Agency reported on Monday.

"Residents are still worried about getting near the area where the incident took place, fearing getting injured by the continuing Syrian sniper gunshots reaching the northern towns,” the NNA elaborated.

President Bashar Assad's regime has put together a new paramilitary force of men and women, some trained by key ally Iran, to fight what is now becoming a guerrilla war, a watchdog said Monday.

The force, dubbed the National Defense Army, gathers together existing popular committees of pro-regime civilian fighters under a new, better-trained and armed hierarchy, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The number of Syrian refugees registered in neighboring countries and North Africa has passed half a million, the U.N.'s refugee body said Tuesday, adding that many more have not come forward to seek help.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said it had either registered or was in the process of registering 509,550 Syrians in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and North Africa

Protests in Syria's northern city Aleppo against the Free Syrian Army highlight the waning influence of mainstream rebel groups and the rise of more disciplined and better-equipped radical Islamists.

Once a rare sight in the Syria's second city and commercial hub, plagued since July 20 by deadly urban combat, the presence of Islamist fighters has now become increasingly felt.

Warplanes on Wednesday pounded suburbs of Damascus as regime forces fought to reclaim rebel-held areas of the capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Britain-based watchdog, which uses a countrywide network of activists and doctors to compile its tolls, said at least 123 people were killed on Tuesday, including some 30 in and around Damascus.

Two mortars hit the Syrian Ministry of Information building in Damascus on Tuesday morning, leaving no casualties and causing minimal damage, state news agency SANA said.

The building is also home to the newspaper of the Baath Party, which holds a monopoly on power in the country, and is located on the Mazzeh highway in the west of the city.