In the impoverished Jabal Mohsen area of the port city of Tripoli in north Lebanon, a small Alawite community is watching anxiously as Syrian President Bashar Assad fights to stay in power.

"Syria is our neighbor, our brother, our mother," Abdul Latif Saleh, mayor of Jabal Mohsen, told Agence France Presse.

An injured Syrian citizen without any identification papers entered the Lebanese territories on Monday, the National News Agency reported.

The Lebanese Red Cross transferred the man from the Qaa border town to al-Salam Hospital in Qbayat.

March 14 general-secretariat coordinator Fares Soaid said on Monday that Syria’s supporters in Lebanon would fall if the Assad regime collapses.

In remarks to Voice of Lebanon radio station (93.3), Soaid said: “If the Syrian regime collapses in the coming months, the Lebanese figures that revolve in its orbit will fall with it.”

Syria's opposition called for "international protection for civilians" in the central city of Homs, besieged by the forces of President Bashar Assad and theatre of deadly clashes between soldiers and alleged army deserters.

Declaring Homs a "humanitarian disaster area," the Syrian National Council urged the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League to act "to stop the massacre committed by the regime."

The ringleader of the gang that kidnapped the seven Estonian tourists, Wael Abbas, stayed in the custody of the Syrian authorities for 20 days before being handed over to Lebanon’s General Security Department last week, official sources said.

The sources told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat published Monday that Syrian authorities questioned Abbas over his fake Venezuelan passport and other documents after Qatar arrested him at Doha airport and deported him to Syria.

Arab foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting Saturday to discuss Syria's failure to implement an Arab proposal to end a crackdown on protests, the Arab League said on Sunday.

A League statement said the Cairo meeting was called because of "the continuation of violence and because the Syrian government did not implement its commitments in the Arab plan to resolve the Syrian crisis."

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Sunday it was clear that Syrian President Bashar Assad was not going to implement an Arab peace plan and there was "nothing more to expect" from his regime.

"I personally think there is nothing more to expect from this regime and that despite its occasional announcements it will not commit to a program of reforms," Juppe told Europe 1 radio.

Security forces killed at least 19 civilians as anti-regime demonstrations were staged across Syria on Sunday, the first day of the Muslim feast marking the end of the hajj, a human rights group said.

It was the fourth straight day of deadly violence since Syria agreed to an Arab peace blueprint aimed at ending nearly eight months of bloodshed.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri asked his followers to pray for the success of the Syrian people in toppling their regime and said he will return to Lebanon when the time is ripe

“I think one has to persist peacefully, we did it in Lebanon and I am sure the Syrian people will prevail in the end,” he said on Twitter fielding questions from his supporters. “Just pray for them.”

Syria’s former Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam has said that Lebanon would be liberated from Iran if Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime falls.

In remarks to An Nahar daily on the sidelines of a meeting in support of the Syrian revolution held in Paris, Khaddam said: “The Lebanese should be aware that Syria’s fate is linked to the fate of Lebanon.”