BEIRUT (Reuters) - At least 65 people were found shot dead with their hands bound in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday in a "new massacre" in the near two-year revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, activists said. 
 
 Opposition campaigners blamed the government but it was impossible to confirm who was responsible. Assad's forces and rebels have been battling in Syria's commercial hub since July and both have been accused of carrying out summary executions. 
 
 U.N.-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi told the U.N. Security Council "unprecedented levels of horror" had been reached in Syria, and that both the government and rebels had committed atrocious crimes, diplomats said. 
 
 He appealed to the 15-nation council to overcome its deadlock and take action to help end the civil war in which Syria is "breaking up before everyone's eyes". 
 
 More than 60,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the war, the longest and deadliest of the revolts that began throughout the Arab world two years ago. 
 
 The U.N. refugee agency said the fighting had forced more than 700,000 people to flee. World powers fear the conflict could envelop Syria's neighbors including Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, further destabilizing an already explosive region. 
 
 Opposition activists posted a video of at least 51 muddied male bodies alongside what they said was the Queiq River in Aleppo's rebel-held Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood. 
 
 The bodies had what looked like bullet wounds in their heads and some of the victims appeared to be young, possibly teenagers, dressed in jeans, shirts and trainers. 
 
 Aleppo-based opposition activists who asked not to be named for security reasons blamed pro-Assad militia fighters. 
 
 They said the men had been executed and dumped in the river before floating downstream into the rebel area. State media did not mention the incident. 
 
 The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which says it provides objective information about casualties on both sides of Syria's war from a network of monitors, said the footage was evidence of a new massacre and the death toll could rise as high as 80. 
 
 "They were killed only because they are Muslims," said a bearded man in another video said to have been filmed in central Bustan al-Qasr after the bodies were removed from the river. A pickup truck with a pile of corpses was parked behind him. 
 
 STALEMATE 
 
 It is hard for Reuters to verify such reports from inside Syria because of restrictions on independent media. 
 
 Rebels are stuck in a stalemate with government forces in Aleppo - Syria's most populous city which is divided roughly in half between the two sides. 
 
 The revolt started as a peaceful protest movement against more than four decades of rule by Assad and his family, but turned into an armed rebellion after a government crackdown. 
 
 About 712,000 Syrian refugees have registered in other countries in the region or are awaiting processing as of Tuesday, the U.N. refugee agency said. 
 
 "We have seen an unrelenting flow of refugees across all borders. We are running double shifts to register people," Sybella Wilkes, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told Reuters in Geneva. 
 
 The United Nations said it had received aid promises ahead of a donor conference in Kuwait on Wednesday where it is seeking $1.5 billion for refugees and people inside Syria. Washington announced an additional $155 million that its said brought the total U.S. humanitarian aid to the crisis to some $365 million. 
 
 Aid group Médecins Sans Frontières said the bulk of the current aid was going to government-controlled areas in Syria and called on donors to make sure they were even-handed. 
 
 MISSILES 
 
 In the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, insurgents including al Qaeda-linked Islamists captured a security agency after days of heavy fighting, according to an activist. 
 
 Some of the fighters were shown carrying a black flag with the Islamic declaration of faith and the name of the al-Nusra Front, which has ties to al Qaeda in neighboring Iraq. 
 
 The war has become heavily sectarian, with rebels who mostly come from the Sunni Muslim majority fighting an army whose top generals are mostly from Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Assad has framed the revolt as a foreign-backed conspiracy and blames the West and Sunni Gulf states. 
 
 Fighting also took place in the northern town of Ras al-Ain, on the border with Turkey, between rebels and Kurdish militants, the Observatory said. 
 
 In Turkey, a second pair of Patriot missile batteries being sent by NATO countries are now operational, a German security official said. 
 
 The United States, Germany and the Netherlands each committed to sending two batteries and up to 400 soldiers to operate them after Ankara asked for help to bolster its air defenses against possible missile attack from Syria. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Sylvia Westall in Kuwait, Sabine Siebold in Berlin and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Robin Pomeroy) ||||| Syrian rebels stormed a government intelligence complex in the oil-rich east of the country on Tuesday, freeing at least 11 people held in a prison at the facility, activists said. 
 
 In this image taken from video obtained from the Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Smoke rises from heavy shelling in Deir el-Zour, Syria, on Monday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this image taken from video obtained from the Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, A Free Syrian Army soldier flashes the victory sign, as damages... (Associated Press) 
 
 After five days of heavy clashes around the intelligence compound in the city of Deir el-Zour, rebels finally overran the complex early Tuesday following intense fighting overnight, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Opposition figures were reportedly being held at the jail on the complex's grounds, but it was not immediately clear whether those freed Tuesday are fighters or activists. 
 
 Government forces responded to the rebel advance by unleashing a series of airstrikes on the compound, trying to push the opposition fighters from the facility. 
 
 Deir el-Zour has been the scene of heavy fighting since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad began in March 2011. The province, which goes by the same name as the city, is located along Syria's border with Iraq and includes several oil installations that the rebels have repeatedly targeted. 
 
 The aid group Doctors Without Borders said last month that government forces are shelling and bombing Deir el-Zour almost daily. It said tens of thousands of Syrians, many of them wounded, remain trapped in the city. 
 
 Also Tuesday, regime warplanes also carried several airstrikes on rebel positions in restive towns and villages around Damascus, including eastern Ghouta and Yalda, and hit other suburbs with artillery, the Observatory said. The group relies on the reports from activists on the ground. 
 
 After capturing several major army bases and government outposts, the rebels control large swathes of land in northeastern Syria. Assad's troops, however, continue to hold a tight grip on the capital after nearly two years of conflict. 
 
 The areas on the capital's doorstep have been rebel strongholds since early on in the revolt. In recent months, the rebels have used them as a base from which they have been trying to push into central Damascus, the seat of Assad's power.
– The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is reporting what it calls a "new massacre" near Aleppo. At least 65 people have been found dead, all apparently shot in the head, and all with their arms tied behind their backs, Reuters reports. The death toll could rise as high as 80, the rights group said. It's unclear which faction in the country's ongoing civil war killed them. The incident comes as Syrian rebels scored a major victory today, taking a government intelligence compound in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor after five days of fighting, and freeing at least 11 prisoners held within, the AP reports. The government responded with a series of airstrikes in an attempt to drive the rebels out. According to Reuters, the rebels included fighters from the al-Nusra Front, an Islamist group with ties to al-Qaeda.