Syria is launching an immediate probe into the deaths of "civilians and troops" in Daraa and Latakia, two cities that have emerged as the focal points of protests, state media reported Thursday.

"Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has charged the head of the judges' council with forming a committee to begin an investigation, effective immediately, into the deaths of civilians and troops in the governorates of Daraa and Latakia," read a report on the state-run news agency SANA.

The West intervened in Libya after the Arab League, many of whose members also face revolts, failed to live up to its duty to protect civilians, Qatar's emir said in an interview broadcast on Thursday.

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani told Al-Jazeera television, based in Doha, he hoped the 22-member organization would now step up and meet its responsibility "amidst the ongoing changes" sweeping the region.

A Reuters journalist of Jordanian nationality has gone missing in unrest-hit Syria, the Amman government announced Thursday, saying it was seeking information about his whereabouts.

"The Jordanian consul in Damascus is trying to get information from the Syrian authorities about Suleiman Khalidi of the Reuters bureau in Amman. He went to Damascus but no one heard from him since Tuesday," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammed Kayed told Agence France Presse.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it received a letter from Syrian political detainees in Damascus Central Prison calling for peaceful demonstrations on Friday for the sake of “freedom, justice and equality.”

“The hour of truth has arrived and comprehensive change is the only choice left,” it added.

The Kuwaiti government submitted its resignation on Thursday, State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Rudhan al-Rudhan told state news agency KUNA.

"The Kuwaiti cabinet submitted its resignation today at an extraordinary meeting," Rudhan said.

France is not planning to arm rebels fighting to oust Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi because such a move is not compatible with a U.N. resolution on the conflict, France's defense minister said Thursday.

"Such assistance is not on the agenda because it is not compatible with resolution 1973," the U.N. Security Council Resolution that authorized U.N. members to intervene to protect civilians, minister Gerard Longuet told reporters.

Libya's foreign minister has not been offered immunity after his surprise arrival in Britain, London said Thursday, while urging other members of Moammar Gadhafi's "crumbling" regime to quit.

Moussa Koussa, a former head of Libyan intelligence and one-time ambassador to Britain, arrived "under his own free will" at Farnborough airport southwest of London on Wednesday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday he opposed arming Libyan rebels, stressing NATO had intervened to protect and not to arm Libyans.

"We are there to protect the Libyan people, not to arm the Libyan people," Rasmussen told reporters.

Kuwait is to expel a number of Iranian diplomats for alleged links to a spy ring working for Tehran, reportedly since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the foreign minister announced on Thursday.

"There will be action against a group of Iranian diplomats ... They will be considered persona non grata and expelled from Kuwait," Sheikh Mohammed al-Sabah told reporters.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his opponents have set the scene for another tense Friday in a two-month-long showdown with calls for rival demonstrations in the Yemeni capital.

State news agency Saba said tribal chiefs, clerics, civil society figures, youths and supporters from the countryside were streaming into Sanaa on Thursday in response to the longtime president's call for a show of solidarity.