Syrian President Bashar Assad said he was pleased with the “smooth transition” between the two Lebanese governments, unveiling that any conflict would have evolved into civil war in Lebanon.

"What pleases me is that this transition between the two governments happened smoothly, because we were worried," Assad told The Wall Street Journal in a rare interview published Monday.

Thousands of Jordanians demonstrated peacefully in Amman and other cities after weekly prayers on Friday to press for political and economic reform, and demanding that the government resign.

"Egypt, the Arab nation salutes you. We urge your men to get rid of (President Hosni) Mubarak," an estimated 3,000 people chanted as they marched in Amman city center holding national flags.

Some 1,000 demonstrators from rural central Tunisia, calling for the resignation of the transitional government, reached the capital on Sunday.

The marchers, from a poor farming region where an uprising against authoritarian rule began last month, called for the resignation of a government put in place after the ouster of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

At least 35 people have been killed in the riots that erupted over the weekend in Tunisia, the president of the International Federation for Human Rights said Tuesday.

"We have a list of the names of the 35," Souhayr Belhassen told Agence France Presse. "The total figure is higher. It's somewhere around 50, but that's an estimate."