Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill arrives in Beirut on Sunday accompanied by Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch and All The East for talks with top political and religious officials.

The two patriarchs and their accompanying delegation are scheduled to visit the St. George Cathedral in Beirut to meet with Greek Orthodox Bishop Elias Awdeh.

At least 33 people were killed in violence in Syria on Friday, most of them in the restive city of Homs, as Human Rights Watch accused the regime of crimes against humanity.

The Local Coordination Committees said that 33 people were killed at the hands of security forces during Friday’s demonstrations.

A Lebanese man had a leg blown off Friday after stepping on a mine planted hours earlier by Syrian troops along Lebanon's northern border, local and hospital officials said.

"Imad Khaled Oweyshi was crossing the border from Syria back into Lebanon when he stepped on the mine," a local official who requested anonymity told AFP.

A high-ranking military source has stressed that no Syrian activists have been kidnapped in Lebanon only saying that the General Security Department had arrested Syrian nationals on criminal charges.

“Based on Lebanese Army reports, there are no kidnapped Syrians in Lebanon and the Intelligence Branches in the areas haven’t recorded any case of kidnapping,” the source told An Nahar daily published Friday.

Speaker Nabih Berri said that Lebanon is committed to disavow itself from any decision taken by the Arab Foreign Ministers in Cairo on Saturday over the Syrian turmoil.

“Lebanon supports implementing reforms (in Syria), the regime has to implement them and must be given the chance to do so to evade any negative repercussions,” Berri told As Safir newspaper on Friday.

Conflicting reports emerged on Friday over the visit of U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing Daniel Glaser to Beirut.

An Nahar newspaper reported on Friday that the discussions that took place between Glaser and Lebanese bankers were positive.

Human Rights Watch on Friday accused Syrian government forces of "crimes against humanity" based on the systematic nature of abuses against civilians in their eight-month crackdown on dissent.

In a report issued a day before the Arab League holds an extraordinary meeting on the crisis, HRW urged the Cairo-based pan-Arab group to suspend Syria's membership.

The military investigative judge on Thursday referred Syrian detainees Ammar al-Adib and Mohammed Bashlah to Tripoli’s Qobbeh prison after issuing arrest warrants against them on charges of arms trade and trafficking weapons from Lebanon into Syria, the General Directorate of General Security said.

“Any action the directorate does on the administrative and security levels stems from its keenness on transparency and commitment to laws and instructions,” it said.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem slammed Thursday what he called “the statement of a U.S. State Department source that encourages the Arab countries to join the political and economic boycott against Syria,” in a letter he sent to Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi.

The aforementioned statement “exceeds the limits of the AL Charter and the bases of the joint Arab action,” Syria’s official news agency SANA quoted Muallem as saying.

Thirty people were killed Thursday in Syria, among them five children and an infant and six regular army soldiers who were shot dead by suspected army defectors, the Local Coordination Committees announced.

Earlier on Thursday, a rights group said a young girl and six soldiers were among 12 Syrians killed during the day as security forces pressed a crackdown on protests and in clashes between troops and army deserters.