Turkey urged the United Nations on Wednesday to appeal to the Syrian leadership to allow a humanitarian operation to help Syrians suffering from the months-long bloodshed.

Speaking to reporters, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the U.N. should step in not only on political matters "but also on humanitarian issues," vowing that Turkey would keep the Syrian crisis "on the U.N. agenda."

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen will travel this week to Turkey where he will meet the country's leaders to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, a diplomat said Monday.

He will meet Turkey's President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and will participate in a roundtable on Turkey-NATO relations, the Turkish source said.

Turkish police made around 100 arrests on Monday in a major new nationwide operation targeting union leaders and activists over their links to Kurdish rebels, television channels reported.

Police raided offices and homes in Istanbul, Ankara and Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, NTV and CNN-Turk reported. Raids also took place in six other cities.

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan left an Istanbul clinic late Sunday after undergoing a second round of surgery on his intestines, his doctors said.

Erdogan, 57, is due to take several days of rest at his Istanbul residence before resuming his official duties and returning to Ankara, they said.

Turkish jets have bombed Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq, home to members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the army said on Sunday.

"Two groups of targets belonging to the separatist terrorists in the regions of Zap and Kahurk were hit with efficiency in the evening of February 11 by Turkish air force jets," the general staff said in a statement posted on its website.

A Turkish court Sunday placed in detention five people suspected of turning over to Syria a founder of the Free Syrian Army who is reported to have since been executed, reports said.

The suspects ordered held by the court in the southern city of Adana include a member of Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT), the Anatolia news agency reported.

Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri voiced his support for Syria's uprising and urged Muslims in several countries, including Lebanon, to come to the aid of Syrian rebels confronting President Bashar Assad's forces.

"I appeal to every Muslim and every free, honorable one in Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, to rise to help his brothers in Syria with all that he can," Zawahiri said in a new video message released on jihadist Internet forums, U.S. monitors SITE Intelligence said on Sunday.

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has undergone follow-up surgery after a November operation on his intestine, his office said Saturday.

"The second and final part of the operation on his intestinal system started on November 26 has been carried out successfully," said the statement, adding that it had taken 30 minutes. It did not way when the operation took place.

A Turkish prosecutor has launched a probe after two Syrian refugees staying in a Turkish border camp were handed over to Syrian security forces, Anatolia news agency reported Friday.

Syrian dissident army colonel Huseyin Mustafa Harmus and Mustafa Kassum were taken out of a refugee camp in Altinozu, Hatay province, near the Syrian border and delivered to Syrian security forces "by force," said the prosecutor's office in southern Adana province, in a statement cited by Anatolia.

The Arab League is likely to launch a "Friends of Syria" coalition and appoint a special envoy to the country at a meeting this weekend, a Western diplomat said Friday.

The diplomat also said that Iranians were "on the ground" giving technical help to Syrian intelligence services, and warned that President Bashar al-Assad's regime had "many levels of violence" yet to use.