British Foreign Secretary William Hague is to hold talks with Syrian rebel leaders in London on Monday, a Foreign Office spokeswoman told AFP.

The leading opposition figures would also hold talks with senior officials from Prime Minister David Cameron's Downing Street office, another government ministry source said.

Contacts between Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat and the parliamentary majority have not been severed, stated a source from the majority to al-Joumhouriya newspaper in remarks published on Saturday.

It added however that contact between the Druze leader and Damascus has been severed for the time being.

At least 17 people were killed across Syria on Saturday, activists said, as an Arab League deadline for Damascus to stop its lethal crackdown on dissent was set to expire.

Among the dead were four intelligence agents killed by gunmen who raked their car with gunfire and two mutinous soldiers who died in clashes with regular troops as the military raided the central town of Shayzar after a heavy shelling, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The head of the Mustaqbal bloc MP Fouad Saniora stressed that Lebanon does not meddle in the developments in Syria, saying that it does not believe in adopting such policies because it has nothing to gain from them and it isn’t even capable of intervening in Syria.

He told the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published on Saturday: “If I were Prime Minister Najib Miqati, I would have abstained from voting on the Arab foreign ministers’ decision to suspend Syria’s membership in the Arab League.”

Prime Minister Najib Miqati is scheduled to travel to the Vatican on November 28 where he is expected to meet with Pope Benedict XVI, reported the daily An Nahar on Saturday.

It noted that the visit is significant as it is part of efforts to keep Lebanon away from the political changes in the region given the division the developments in Syria have created among the government forces and opposition in Lebanon.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Friday of the possibility of a civil war in Syria that either is directed or influenced by Syrian army defectors.

"I think there could be a civil war with a very determined and well-armed and eventually well-financed opposition that is, if not directed by, certainly influenced by defectors from the army," Clinton told the U.S. network NBC.

The decision of the Arab League to suspend Syria is "a historic mistake" and will cause civil war in the unrest-hit country, an Iranian official said Friday, Anatolia news agency reported.

"The path the Arab League has taken is completely about defeating Syria from inside, and triggering a civil war," Anatolia quoted Alaaddin Burucerdi, the head of the Iranian parliamentary commission on foreign policy, as saying.

The Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul Karim Ali stressed on Friday that Syrian President Bashar Assad is implementing reform despite the media uproar indicating the contrary.

He said after holding talks with Speaker Nabih Berri: “The international pressure against Syria will crumble before its national unity and its leadership’s responsible policies towards all challenges.”

Some 150 Lebanese and Syrian protesters gathered in the northern city of Tripoli Friday to demand Syria's President Bashar al-Assad step down and warning his Lebanese ally, Hizbullah, that it would be next.

Chanting "Down with Bashar al-Assad" and "Your turn is next, Hizbullah," they gathered outside the local Qubba mosque before making their way through the densely populated city.

Syria's foreign minister has sent a letter to Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi requesting changes to a proposal to send a 500-strong delegation of observers to Damascus, the Arab body said on Friday.

The pan-Arab body had agreed to send 500 members of human rights groups, media representatives and military observers to Syria, which said it would welcome them to see the situation on the ground and help implement a peace plan.