Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said Monday that Syria peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's mission had not brought a "glimmer of hope" in ending the bloodshed, and urged U.N. action to enforce a ceasefire.

"All contacts (with the warring sides and international actors) made by Brahimi have thus far not yielded a glimmer of hope to end this crisis," Arabi told leaders meeting for an Arab League economic summit in Riyadh.

Syria's Defense Minister Fahd al-Freij said on Monday that the country will defeat a conspiracy against it and overcome "terrorist gangs," state television reported.

"Syria is the only country that works for the liberation of Palestine and the occupied Arab states, therefore an Zionist and American-led plot has been hatched with the financing of some Arab regimes in favor of Israel," said Freij.

Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi told fellow Arab leaders meeting in Riyadh on Monday that he opposes French-led military action in Mali against Islamist rebels.

"We do not accept at all the military intervention in Mali because that will fuel conflict in the region," Morsi said at the opening of an economic summit in the Saudi capital.

Syrian President Bashar Assad stressed on Monday that his country does not need the permission of any nation in the world to deal with its internal political issues, rejecting calling Syria's current events a revolution or a spring.

"These are battles of wills first and foremost,” Assad told Nasim Online news agency, adding that “the terrorist acts' aim is to destroy the country”.

President Bashar Assad's regime has put together a new paramilitary force of men and women, some trained by key ally Iran, to fight what is now becoming a guerrilla war, a watchdog said Monday.

The force, dubbed the National Defense Army, gathers together existing popular committees of pro-regime civilian fighters under a new, better-trained and armed hierarchy, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Jordanians skeptical about the outcome of a January 23 legislative election say they will not vote as they are fed up with the empty promises and failures of past parliaments.

Regular Arab Spring-inspired protests over the past two years have demanded sweeping political and economic reform, including more jobs and the elimination of poverty and corruption.

Egypt's opposition has called for demonstrations across the country on Friday, the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, to protest against mounting “mistakes” by the ruling Islamists.

The National Salvation Front, the country's main opposition bloc which groups liberals and leftists, called for "rallies in all the Tahrir Squares of the country on Friday."

Four batteries of Patriot missiles arrived in Turkey on Monday as part of a NATO mission to protect the Turkish border from any spillover of the conflict in neighboring Syria, a NATO source told AFP.

A ship carrying two German Patriot missile batteries anchored at the southwestern port of Iskenderun early Monday and its cargo was being unloaded, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Syrian warplanes on Monday launched raids on two towns east of Damascus, a monitoring group said, as a total overnight electricity blackout in the capital began to lift in the morning.

"Warplanes staged several air strikes on Irbin and Hamuriyeh in Damascus province," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers across the strife-torn country to compile its reports.

Iranian police wounded five armed thugs in a rare shootout in Tehran, local media reported on Monday, quoting a senior police officer.

"There were some armed clashes when some thugs used firearms as the police tried to arrest them," Tehran police chief Hossein Sajedinia was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency, without specifying when the incident occurred.