U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called on Wednesday Russia, Iran, and Hizbullah to help end the war in Syria, saying that Lebanon has felt the impact of the crisis more than any other country.

He said: “Iran, Russia, and Hizbullah must engage in a legitimate effort to bring this war to an end.”

German prosecutors have filed terrorism charges against a Lebanese man accused of belonging to a hard-line Islamic group in Syria, and two suspected accomplices.

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday the main suspect, identified only as Ismail I., was charged with membership in the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al-Qaida breakaway group.

Syrian President Bashar Assad was on course Wednesday to claim a sweeping victory in an election held amid raging conflict that Washington called a "disgrace".

Official results are only expected to be announced later this week, but a landslide win for Assad over two little-known challengers has never been in doubt.

A quarter of a century after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's death, Iran remains at a crossroads in navigating its way out of economic and diplomatic troubles, against a backdrop of political infighting.

Wednesday marks 25 years of the Islamic republic without its founder, the charismatic spiritual and political leader who remains ever-present on bank notes, portraits in public offices and countless posters.

Russia said Tuesday it would not shirk efforts to find a political solution in Syria during its month-long presidency of the U.N. Security Council, calling for a new mediator to be appointed without delay.

Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, under fire from Western colleagues for blocking attempts to enforce humanitarian corridors in the war-torn country, said Moscow wanted a political solution.

The United States on Tuesday denounced Syrian leader Bashar Assad's attempt to shore up his authority by staging presidential elections in the middle of a brutal civil war.

"Today's presidential election in Syria is a disgrace," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said. "Assad has no more credibility today than he did yesterday."

Confident and casual, Syrian President Bashar Assad voted Tuesday along with his British-born wife, Asma, for his own re-election, displaying an image that contrasts sharply with the war he is waging.

Portrayed as a criminal by the opposition, Assad is keen to show himself as a man of the people. And he posed for a selfie along with a group of youths at the polling station where he voted.

It was in Baba Amr, in Syria's Homs, that the armed uprising against Bashar Assad erupted, but with people turning out to vote Tuesday as the president sought re-election, the spirit of revolution seemed to have vanished.

A loudspeaker outside the Hassan al-Sabet school, the district's sole polling station, blared out the words of a patriotic song: "We salute this land of Syria, its heroes and its army."

Syrians voted as fighting raged Tuesday in a presidential election in which Bashar Assad is looking to tighten his grip as his forces battle rebels in a devastating three-year war.

In the afternoon, the higher electoral commission extended voting by five hours "due to heavy turnout."

Unknown gunmen on Tuesday opened fire at a Syrian polling station in the Jdeidet Yabous area near the border with Lebanon, which witnessed huge gatherings of Syrians who flocked to vote in their country's presidential election that got underway on Tuesday.

“Sniper gunshots from al-Zabadani mountain are targeting the polling station in the border area of Jdeidet Yabous,” LBCI television reported.