Rebel troops hit offices of Syria's ruling party on Thursday, a day after a daring raid on an intelligence base that prompted Russia to warn that its longtime ally risks "full-scale civil war."

The rocket-propelled grenade attack in northwestern Idlib province, near Turkey, came as security forces killed eight people, including two children, despite an Arab League ultimatum that Syria halt the bloodshed or risk sanctions.

Iraq's anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has expressed support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while noting that he sympathizes with the “revolutionaries” in Syria.

Assad has since March been trying to crush a popular uprising against his government, in which over 3,500 people have been killed, according to U.N. figures.

Residents of a border town went on an overnight rampage after a Jordanian, who allegedly helped two Syrians buy arms, died in detention, police said on Thursday.

Angry protesters in Ramtha, a town north of Amman and near the border with Syria, set fire to the governor's offices, the courthouse and a police car before a riot squad broke up the demonstration using tear gas.

The leader of Syria's exiled Muslim Brotherhood said Thursday that his compatriots would accept Turkish "intervention" in the country to resolve months of bloody unrest.

"The Syrian people would accept intervention coming from Turkey, rather than from the West, if its goal was to protect the people," Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammad Riad Shakfa told a press conference.

Syria said it has issued a warning to its citizens that they would be arrested and prosecuted if they took part in further attacks on embassies.

"The interior ministry will take all necessary measures, including the arrest and trial, of any person seeking to attack diplomatic missions," the state news agency SANA reported.

Germany, Britain and France are pressing for a U.N. resolution that would strongly condemn Syria's human rights violations and call for an immediate halt to all violence in the country.

The three European countries decided to move ahead with the General Assembly resolution after the Arab League confirmed its suspension of Syria Wednesday and gave Bashar Assad's government three days to halt the violence against civilians and accept an observer mission or face economic sanctions.

Damascus' Russian ally said Thursday that attacks by renegade Syrian troops risked plunging the country into civil war and accused foreign powers of fanning the flames by supporting the opposition.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was speaking after talks with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, piling more pressure on his increasingly isolated regime.

China said Thursday it was "highly concerned" about the situation in Syria, where the regime is being pressed to end a violent crackdown on protests and implement an Arab League peace plan.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has so far failed to comply with the peace plan -- signed on November 2 -- to end its crackdown on protests, which the United Nations says has left at least 3,500 people dead since March.

A Syrian diplomatic source said Damascus has appreciated the stance taken by Lebanon at the meeting of the Arab foreign ministers in Cairo last Saturday.

The source told al-Joumhouria daily published on Thursday that the Lebanese position expressed the common vision of the two countries.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri stressed on Wednesday that only Israel, Iran and Hizbullah along with the current government are defending the Syrian regime, reiterating his call on President Bashar Assad to leave power.

“Don't you see that now Israel and Iran and Hizbullah and this government are defending the Syrian regime?” Hariri said on the social networking website twitter.