The Free Syrian Army on Monday urged the Arab League to let the U.N. handle the crisis in Syria, accusing President Bashar al-Assad's regime of pressing on with a crackdown despite an Arab plan to end the unrest.

Russia on Monday distributed a new draft resolution on the Syrian crisis at the U.N. Security Council after facing weeks of criticism over the slow pace of talks, diplomats said.

Western diplomats said however there is no apparent change in the Russian position opposing any strong U.N. action against President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on protests which has left thousands dead.

A leading MP and an opposition figure who heads Syria's largest tribe announced they have defected and gone into exile, in interviews broadcast on Monday on Al-Arabiya television.

"I have come to Turkey to activate the opposition. The Syrian revolution is our path. The country's youth are making the greatest sacrifices for a better future," Al-Baqqara tribal chief Nawaf al-Bashir told the satellite channel.

Syrian activists will make a fresh attempt at entering from Turkey with medical aid for the uprising's March 15 anniversary, organizers said Monday, after their "Freedom Convoy" was turned away last week.

"The Freedom Convoy will reconvene in Gaziantep (in Turkey's southeast) on March 15 because it is the day when the popular revolt began against the regime of (President Bashar al-) Assad," Moayad Skaf, the group's spokesperson, was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency on Monday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's media advisor, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, has been found guilty by a Tehran court of insulting supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but on Monday fought back against the charge.

"My adherence to the sage supreme leader is more apparent than the sun, and is backed by my record," Javanfekr wrote on his personal website, Javanfekr.ir.

Syrian security forces on Monday killed at least 13 people across the country, among them five army deserters, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

Eight people were killed in the flashpoint central province of Homs while five others were killed in the northwestern province of Idlib, the LCC said.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, which won a crushing victory in Egyptian legislative elections, on Monday nominated its secretary general to head the new parliament.

"We have decided to nominate Saad al-Katatni as the next speaker of the People's Assembly (parliament's lower house)," FJP chief Mohammed Mursi told a news conference.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday appealed to the Security Council to act with "seriousness" on Syria, where he said the situation has become "unacceptable."

"The situation has reached an unacceptable point," Ban told reporters on the sidelines of an energy summit in Abu Dhabi.

Iran has made arrests over a scientist's assassination last week blamed on Israel and the U.S., parliament speaker Ali Larijani said Monday, vowing his country would avenge the death using "non-terrorist" tactics.

He did not specify how many people were arrested or when the arrests were made, or give any details on the suspects' identities or nationalities.

Iran has repeatedly violated a U.N. arms embargo with exports to protest-hit Syria, the French foreign ministry said on Monday, citing a U.N. group of experts.

"The U.N. panel of experts on Iran has identified and informed the Security Council of several violations of the embargo on arms to or from Iran set up by... the United Nations Security Council," said spokesman Romain Nadal.