Meanwhile, thousands of women blocked a stretch of a main coastal road in the north of the country demanding authorities release hundreds of people arrested during a crackdown on the towns of Banias and Baida, London-based rights activist Rami Abdel Rahman said.
The official SANA news agency said a Syrian soldier and three armed men were among several people killed in clashes on Tuesday in Banias.
And the authorities paraded three suspects on state television, who admitted being members of an "armed terrorist gang, saying they received money and weapons from abroad to fuel unrest in Syria."
In particular, the suspects said they had received arms and weapons from neighboring Lebanon. A Lebanese MP named by one suspect denied any involvement.
"We received orders to incite people into protesting, especially in front of the Umayyad Mosque (in Damascus)," the man identified as Anas Kanj, said on television. "Then we received orders to arm ourselves in order to carry out operations to support our brothers in Daraa and all of Syria's provinces like Latakia and Banias, and this was through Ahmad Oudeh who was the messenger between myself and MP Jamal Al-Jarrah in Lebanon," Kanj said.
Al-Jarrah, who denied the allegations on Lebanese television, belongs to the anti-Syrian Lebanese Future movement headed by caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
