The Syrian rebel commander in central Homs province, Colonel Kassem Saadeddine, said in a video posted Wednesday that he had escaped an assassination attempt by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.

"Thanks be to God, we have returned after having escaped from the hands of Assad's bands," Saadeddine, also the spokesman for the Joint Command of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), said in the video posted overnight.

Britain is to begin talks with armed opposition groups in Syria as it seeks to help end the violence, Prime Minister David Cameron's office said Wednesday.

The government has authorized officials to have contacts with military representatives of the groups, Downing Street said, although government sources stressed the initiative was about political dialogue, not providing weapons.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday congratulated U.S. President Barack Obama on his re-election, saying ties between their two countries were "stronger than ever."

"The prime minister congratulates the president of the United States for his victory in the election," Netanyahu said in a statement. "The strategic alliance between Israel and the United States is stronger than ever."

British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday toured a desert refugee camp for Syrians in northern Jordan, walking down a dusty road between the tents before visiting a U.N.-run school.

Dressed casually in black trousers, a grey shirt and a sporting a Remembrance poppy, Cameron took time to speak to some of the more than 36,000 Syrians housed in tents and caravans in the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syria border.

The United Nations on Tuesday condemned fighting by Syrian forces close to a Golan Heights ceasefire line with Israel as a new threat to stability in the region.

Israel demanded action by the U.N. Security Council after one of its patrols in the buffer zone was hit Monday by bullets fired by Syrian forces who are battling rebels in the area.

An Egyptian policeman was shot and critically wounded in Sinai on Tuesday when gunmen opened fire on a police patrol, days after three policemen were killed in an ambush in the restive peninsula.

The officer was shot in the neck in the northern city of El-Arish, the site of the deadly attack on Saturday.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said he would support granting Syrian President Bashar Assad a safe passage out, if requested, to end the nation's bloodshed, in a television interview Tuesday.

Asked what he would say if Assad asked for a safe exit, Cameron told Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV: "Done. Anything, anything to get that man out of the country and to have a safe transition in Syria."

Egypt's new Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II has said he would reject a constitution still in the making if it imposed a religious state in the Muslim-majority country, newspapers reported on Tuesday.

Tawadros, whose minority community has become increasingly fearful of the rise of Islamists to power in Egypt, also urged Christians not to leave the country stressing that they have co-existed with Muslims for centuries.

Syrian rebels under increasing attack from regime warplanes have obtained 50 Stinger shoulder-launched missiles, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Amman Tuesday after talks with a top dissident.

Lavrov also stressed after his meeting in the Jordanian capital with Syria's defected former prime minister Riad Hijab that he planned to work with opposition groups to help end the conflict that has ravaged Syria for more than 19 months.

Israel is preparing to counter a Palestinian bid for enhanced United Nations status later this month, a foreign ministry spokesman told AFP on Tuesday.

The comments came as Israel's private Channel 10 reported that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman last month pledged to ensure the "collapse" of the Palestinian Authority if the bid for non-member status at the General Assembly goes forward.