Lebanese authorities are searching for a Syrian opposition figure who went missing three weeks ago and who may have been kidnapped, his daughter said on Wednesday.

Shebli al-Aysami, 86, is a co-founder of Syria's ruling Baath Party but fled his native Syria in 1966 over political differences with the group.

The March 14 forces vowed on Wednesday to confront alleged attempts by the new Lebanese cabinet to take Lebanon back to the era of Syrian hegemony and integrate the country’s institutions into Hizbullah’s statelet.

The general-secretariat of the coalition said after its weekly meeting that it would prevent Premier Najib Miqati’s government to “return Lebanon to the dark stage that the Cedar Revolution liberated” after ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination in February 2005.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea stated on Wednesday that the new government is reminiscent of the period of Syrian hegemony over Lebanon, saying that at a time when people are revolting against oppressive regimes, Lebanon has become directly linked to one of them.

He said during a press conference: “The new government has gone against the tide of these revolts, and six years after the Cedar revolution, the cabinet came to remind us of the time of hegemony in the worst possible way.”

Thousands of supporters of Bashar Assad demonstrated Wednesday on the outskirts of Damascus as the embattled president came under intense world pressure to halt a crackdown on democracy protests.

Flag-waving pro-regime demonstrators lined a highway leading to the posh residential suburb of al-Mezze in western Damascus where a huge flag measuring 2.3 kilometers was unfurled, state television showed.

An envoy of Syrian President Bashar Assad was to hold talks on Wednesday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has been urging the Damascus regime to halt its crackdown on protesters.

Erdogan would host afternoon talks with Hassan Turkmani in Ankara on "the developments in Syria", a government source told Agence France Presse.

Hizbullah began shifting the long- and medium-range rockets it had allegedly stored in northern Lebanon to locations in the center of the country, the Israeli Debkafile website reported.

Western military sources told the website that “Hizbullah was taking the precaution of keeping its arsenal safe from a spillover of violence from Syria.”

A man who identified himself as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Syrian army has told Agence France Presse that he had seen “Iranian and Hizbullah snipers” in the Damascus suburb of Saqba.

"I remember well in Damascus, in the Saqba district, I saw people demonstrating” and “with my own eyes I saw snipers positioned on upper floors, Iranian and Hizbullah snipers who fired on the crowd," Hussein Harmoush told AFP, when asked about the presence of Iranian soldiers or Hizbullah warriors fighting alongside the Syrian army, as recently reported by many witnesses.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan telephoned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Tuesday and urged him to stop a bloody crackdown on protesters and launch reforms, Anatolia news agency reported.

Erdogan told the Syrian leader to "refrain from violence and end the unrest" that has swept Syria since anti-regime protests erupted in March, the report said.

Six civilians were killed Tuesday and tanks were deployed near Syria's border with Iraq, activists said as President Bashar al-Assad came under sharp pressure to halt a crackdown on democracy protests.

The latest deaths came after fresh protests erupted in the eastern town of Deir Ezzor, a human rights activist told Agence France Presse, and troops pursued a scorched earth campaign in northern mountains, sending thousands fleeing.

Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel stressed on Tuesday that Prime Minister Najib Miqati’s new cabinet was formed after receiving a Syrian green light.

“It is obvious that the formation of the government came after full coordination” with Damascus, Gemayel told LBC TV network. “Syria will take advantage of it (the cabinet) to consolidate itself and use it as a tool in its foreign contacts or to confront the challenges that it is currently facing.”