Syrian authorities released leading human rights activist Abdul Karim Rihawi on Monday after detaining him 11 days ago, his lawyer said.

"The authorities released Abdul Karim Rihawi without bringing any charges against him," lawyer Khalil Maatouq said.

The Libyan embassy in Damascus on Monday declared that it was siding with the rebel body the National Transitional Council, whose fighters have swept into Tripoli and are poised to overrun the capital.

"We, the ambassadors and members of the Libyan embassy in Damascus, announce our total support for the revolution of February 17 and declare our formal adherence to the National Transitional Council," it said in a statement.

The U.N. rights body held an emergency meeting on Monday to press Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end a deadly crackdown on dissent, a day after he scoffed at Western calls to quit.

More than 2,200 people have died in the Syrian regime's crackdown, U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay told the Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva that was expected to condemn the bloodshed.

Syrian security forces and pro-regime militiamen on Monday killed five people, including three shot dead by security forces who opened fire on protesters at a rally in Homs as a U.N. fact-finding team visited the central Syrian city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which reported the killings said several people were also wounded in Homs.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday signed a decree setting a commission tasked with legalizing political parties.

The commission is chaired by the prime minister and comprises a magistrate and two lawyers.

The Lebanese Army and Internal Security Forces prevented anti-Assad demonstrators on Sunday from reaching the border with Syria during a protest at the Masnaa border crossing in the Bekaa valley.

An Nahar daily said Monday that the demonstration was called for by Hizb ut-Tahrir in support of the Syrian people protesting the Assad regime’s crackdown.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday brushed aside Western calls for his ouster as "worthless," saying they come from "countries that are committing massacres," in an interview with state television.

"While withholding comment, we tell them that their words are worthless," Assad said.

Red Cross delegates hope to visit soon thousands of Syrians jailed since the start of pro-democracy protests in mid-March, a spokesman for the ICRC said on Sunday.

"During his visit to Damascus June 21 and 22, ICRC chief Jakob Kellenberger made such a request," Saleh Dabbakeh, spokesman of the International Committee for the Red Cross, told AFP in the Syrian capital.

Kuwait's public prosecution Sunday freed Islamist MP Mohammed Hayef after detaining him for one day for questioning over alleged threats to the Syrian ambassador, his lawyer said.

Hayef was detained after he initially refused to pay a 2,000-dinar ($7,350) bail "but later he agreed and paid the bail and was freed," lawyer Adel Abdul Hadi told Agence France Presse.

Syrian President Bashar Assad may seek to create unrest in Lebanon after the West called on the president to step down, western diplomatic sources told the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa newspaper in remarks published on Sunday.

They explained that Assad has now lost his “most important strategic card”, which is the regional, Arab, and international support.