Vienna is in favor of further sanctions against the regime of Syria's Bashar Assad, Austrian Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger said in a radio interview Saturday.

"We cannot accept what Bashar Assad is doing to his countrymen at the moment -- shooting at protestors, hunting the opposition," Spindelegger told Oe1 radio, adding that "U.N.-led" sanctions should be reinforced and should target specific people.

The United Nations said Friday that international help is needed to feed 1.5 million people in crisis-torn Syria, but humanitarian corridors were not yet justified.

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said almost three million people out of Syria's population of about 20.5 million had been affected by the deadly crackdown on protests launched by President Bashar Assad since March.

At least 24 civilians and members of the security forces were killed in attacks in Syria on Saturday as Arab League finance ministers met in Cairo to draw up economic sanctions against Damascus.

Deserters killed eight soldiers and members of the security forces and wounded 40 more in an attack in Idlib in northwest Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

President Jalal Talabani said Iraq was afraid extremists might take over in Syria if Bashar Assad's regime falls, according to a Saturday statement on the presidential website.

"We are worried about the alternative... we are afraid of the extremist party, if it replaces the old," Talabani said in an interview with Iraqiya television, according to the statement.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said on Saturday that it was "not possible" to impose economic sanctions on Syria due to its commercial ties with Iraq and the large number of Iraqi refugees there.

"It is not possible, in the opinion of Iraq, to impose economic sanctions on Syria," Zebari told a news conference in the Iraqi shrine city of Najaf.

At least 10 troops and security service agents were killed in clashes with mutinous soldiers in the east of the country, a human rights group said on Saturday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deaths occurred late Friday in Deir Ezzor while early Saturday a civilian was also killed in the eastern city.

France is mulling to downsize its troops in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon early next year, informed French sources told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Saturday.

The sources said the reduction in the number of French soldiers from the current 12,000 would come when UNIFIL Commander Maj. Gen. Alberto Asarta’s mandate expires.

The United Nations said Friday that international help is needed to feed 1.5 million people in crisis-torn Syria, but humanitarian corridors were not yet justified.

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said almost three million people out of Syria's population of about 20.5 million had been affected by the deadly crackdown on protests launched by President Bashar Assad since March.

The U.N.'s human rights chief is in contact with the Arab League over its efforts to end the deadly crackdown on protests in Syria, a U.N. spokesman said Friday.

The League said Thursday it wants U.N. help in its showdown with President Bashar al-Assad, and diplomats said the League may want a U.N. contribution to an international observer mission that Syria is refusing to let in.

The United Arab Emirates has called on its citizens in Syria to exercise caution and avoid the areas that witness frequent anti-regime protests.

Isa Abdullah al-Kalbani, director of Citizens' Affairs at the UAE Foreign Ministry, called on citizens to leave Syria and reconsider travel to the country, reported the Emirates News Agency WAM on Friday.