Saudi Arabia will be the first country to contribute troops should a joint U.N.-Arab peacekeeping force proposed by the Arab League see light, journalistic sources in the kingdom said, following the sharp toned remarks voiced by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal during the League’s meeting on Sunday.

“The Royal Saudi Land Forces will be at the forefront of participants in the peacekeeping mission in Syria should the decision taken by the Arab foreign ministers during their meeting in Cairo yesterday be approved,” journalistic sources in Saudi Arabia told Naharnet.

Britain on Monday said Western nations were unlikely to join a U.N.-Arab peacekeeping force proposed by the Arab League to end the violence in Syria, as Germany welcomed the Arab League's "important" role and Italy backed the Arab suggestion.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague called for urgent talks on the League’s, but said Western nations were unlikely to join the force.

A Syrian opposition group on Monday rejected any interference by al-Qaida in the unrest-hit country after the extremist network's leader voiced support for their uprising in an Internet video.

In a video titled "Onwards, Lions of Syria", al-Qaida's Ayman al-Zawahiri criticized the Syrian regime for crimes against its citizens, and praised those rising up against the government, according to SITE Intelligence Group.

Israeli diplomats were targeted by bomb attacks in Delhi and Tbilisi on Monday, officials said, with two people injured in the Indian capital when an embassy car exploded in a ball of fire.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed the finger at Israel's regional arch-foe Iran.

Syria is determined to "restore security" regardless of the latest Arab League initiatives to end bloodshed, a government official said, in a report Monday by SANA state news agency.

"This decision will not prevent the Syrian government from fulfilling its responsibilities in protecting its citizens and restoring security and stability," the unnamed official was quoted as saying.

The European Union backed on Monday an Arab League call for a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Syria and urged the U.N. Security Council to act in order to stop the violence there.

"We welcome these bold decisions and the strong and clear commitment and leadership that the Arab League is taking to resolve the crisis in Syria," said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Asthon.

A fierce gunfight between two tribes in Libya's remote southeastern desert has killed six people in the past two days and wounded another 20, officials and tribal sources told Agence France Presse on Monday.

Clashes between members of the Zwai and Tobu tribes in the town of Kufra killed five people on Sunday, while one person was slain in a firefight on Monday, tribal sources said.

Russia said on Monday that a ceasefire needed to be established in Syria before a joint U.N.-Arab peacekeeping mission could be deployed in the violence-wracked nation.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was studying a new Arab League initiative for the body to form a joint peacekeeping force with the United Nations, adding that Moscow had questions about certain points.

China refused Monday to say if it backs an Arab League call for the U.N. Security Council to create a joint peacekeeping force for Syria, the latest bid to end the violence that has killed thousands there.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin refused to directly answer repeated questions on whether it would support the league's call. He said China backs the Arab League's "political mediation efforts."

Regime forces resumed their assault on the Syrian protest city of Homs on Monday, activists said, after Damascus rejected an Arab plan to send a peacekeeping force to the unrest-hit country.

Shortly before sunrise, the army launched mortars into Baba Amr, a rebel stronghold in the central city, as forces swept through southern Daraa province arresting dissidents, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.