The departing U.N. observer mission chief on Saturday accused both Syrian army and rebel forces of failing to protect civilians, as activists report dozens of people killed daily.

"Both parties have obligations under international humanitarian law to make sure that civilians are protected," General Babacar Gaye, head of the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria, told reporters in Damascus.

The European Union on Saturday pledged to support Lakhdar Brahimi as the new international mediator on the Syria conflict in his "immensely challenging task".

"Mr. Brahimi is an experienced diplomat with a deep understanding of the region," EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement, adding: "The EU will provide him with its full support in this immensely challenging task."

Russia welcomed the new international envoy for the conflict in Syria and said it expected him build on the work of predecessor Kofi Annan, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday.

"We proceed on the assumption that Lakhdar Brahimi will base his work on the platform of the existing 'road map' of a Syrian settlement -- Kofi Annan's peace plan and the final communique of the June ministerial meeting of the Action Group on Syria in Geneva and also on the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions," the ministry said.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday ordered the withdrawal of U.N. observers in Syria, while Russia called for international powers to set a deadline for government and opposition forces to halt the conflict.

The 15-member Security Council decided not to renew the mandate of the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) which ends at midnight on Sunday.

The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday strongly condemned an attack on peacekeepers in Sudan's troubled Darfur region in which a Bangladeshi police officer was killed.

The attack on Sunday in the South Darfur capital of Nyala came less than two weeks after the Security Council had renewed the mandate of the African Union-UN mission, UNAMID, but also cut its size.

A Lebanese cabinet minister hinted on Friday that Israeli claims of explosives smuggling through the Lebanese-Israeli border were aimed at covering up the failure of the Jewish state to withdraw from the Lebanese side of the border village of Ghajar.

The minister, who was not identified, did not rule out that the charges against at least eight Arab-Israeli men of transferring explosives to Israel, were an excuse to cover up Israeli troops’ continued occupation of the northern part of Ghajar.

Arab states will not accept a new international envoy to Syria after Kofi Annan's resignation unless his or her mandate is to clearly negotiate a transfer of power, Qatar's prime minister said on Saturday.

"Arab nations will not accept a new envoy with the same mandate that was given to Annan," Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani told Al-Jazeera of the outgoing U.N. and Arab League envoy, whose six-point plan for peace was never implemented.

France will seek to organize a ministerial-level U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria before the end of August, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement on Wednesday.

France currently holds the rotating chair of the Security Council and Fabius had said on Monday that Paris would try to organize a meeting before the end of this week.

The Trial Chamber confirmed the Special Tribunal for Lebanon's jurisdiction to try those accused of committing the February 14, 2005 attack and connected cases, in a decision published on Monday, it announced in a statement.

It said: “The Trial Chamber dismissed all the motions of the defense counsel, who argued that the tribunal was set up illegally, violates Lebanese sovereignty, has selective jurisdiction and does not guarantee the accused a right to fair trial.”

France, which is taking over the U.N. Security Council's rotating presidency in August, will call an emergency ministerial meeting on Syria, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Monday.

Fabius told French radio station RTL he would chair the meeting himself and that it had to be held urgently to stop President Bashar Assad's regime carrying out further massacres in Syria.