Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad al-Maqdessi has defected from President Bashar Assad's regime, a Syrian opposition leader announced on Monday.

“Maqdessi left Damascus for Beirut and from there he headed to an unknown destination,” Jamal al-Wadi, the director of the office of revolutionary movement of the Syrian National Council, told Sky News Arabia television.

Three women were elected to Kuwait's new parliament as the house now includes as many as 30 new faces following the polls that reportedly saw a 38.8 percent voter turnout.

Three women were elected to the new parliament compared to four in 2009, according to results released by the National Election Commission.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour has said the Syrian war has "negative ramifications" for the region but advocated dialogue as the only solution to the crisis.

"There should not be any external military or any other kind of intervention," said Mansour at a one-day summit in Istanbul on Saturday.

Political and security efforts accelerated on Saturday to contain the repercussions of Friday's incident that killed a group of Lebanese Islamists from Tripoli in the Syrian border town of Tall Kalakh, As Safir daily said Saturday.

The army had been heavily deployed along the aptly named Syria Street dividing Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen in Tripoli, in a bid to deter any security deterioration, the daily added.

At least 17 Lebanese Islamists were killed in Syria on Friday as they were infiltrating the country, reported various media outlets.

Agence France Presse said that 17 Lebanese Sunni fighters were killed in Syria's Tal Kalakh border area in an ambush carried out by regime forces.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun accused the Mustaqbal Movement and its allies of “oppressing” Christian factions in Lebanon through their practices over the parliamentary electoral law.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc's weekly meeting: “Its allies, the Lebanese Forces and Phalange Party, are unjustly treating other Christian powers in Lebanon.”

Politically divided Lebanese made on Saturday a show of unity during an official ceremony in Rome that allowed Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi to join the elite club of churchmen who will elect the next pope.

Pope Benedict XVI formally elevated five other prelates at the ceremony that was held at St. Peter's Basilica, bestowing red hats and gold rings on them.

Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi told supporters on Thursday that Egypt was on the path to "freedom and democracy," a day after he assumed sweeping powers that critics said made him a dictator.

"Political stability, social stability and economic stability are what I want and that is what I am working for," he told an Islamist rally outside the presidential palace.

Pope Benedict XVI met on Friday with President Michel Suleiman who is in Rome to attend the ceremony of the official appointment of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi as cardinal.

Suleiman did not make any statement after the meeting held at the Vatican.

Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani on Friday noted that “Lebanese leaders enjoy the sufficient capability to resolve their problems," adding that "some forces want to destabilize Lebanon but do not have the ability to do so."

Larijani was in Beirut as part of a regional tour aimed at finding ways to resolve the crisis in Syria, media reports said.