Spain sent a special envoy to Damascus last month to convince President Bashar Assad to accept a plan to end months of violence in the country, a Spanish news report said Monday.

The government was also "ready to offer asylum to Assad and his family in Spain," the country's leading daily El Pais said.

Syrian troops backed by tanks clamped down Monday on the flashpoint province of Homs, a day after gunboats joined an assault that killed more than 20 people in Latakia city, activists said.

As the country's anti-regime uprising turned five months old, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said snipers shot dead an old man in the provincial town of Hula and reported another killing in Latakia.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who visits Beirut on Tuesday, is expecting that the Palestinian bid for United Nations recognition will receive a boost from Lebanon's taking over the presidency of the U.N. Security Council.

In an interview with al-Liwaa daily published Monday, Abbas hoped that Lebanon would play an effective role in his bid for U.N. membership on September 20, despite Israeli opposition.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi spat defiance at opposition forces and NATO on Monday amid rumors he was preparing to flee the country and as rebels made advances in several towns, especially in the west.

The veteran leader predicted a swift end for "the rats" and the "colonizer", referring to the rebels and NATO, in an audio message on Libyan television, extracts of which were published by Libyan news agency JANA.

The Palestinian foreign minister has said that the Palestinians expect their bid for United Nations recognition will receive a boost from Lebanon's taking over the presidency of the U.N. Security Council.

Riad Malki said Saturday the Palestinians will press ahead as planned with their independence bid in late September.

An imprisoned Libyan army colonel who surrendered to the rebel forces two months ago told Agence France Presse on Saturday that Moammar Gadhafi's regime is ridden with divisions and in the process of collapse.

Speaking from a prisoner of war camp in the rebel enclave of Misrata, Colonel Wissam Miland said Gadhafi's military hangs together through coercion and mercenary-enforced martial law, but that infighting is rife.

President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a decree toughening sanctions on Libya five months after the measure was passed by the U.N. Security Council in March, the Kremlin said Friday.

It was not immediately clear why Medvedev signed the decree implementing the sanctions so long after Resolution 1973 was passed.

Syria's U.N. ambassador said Wednesday that anti-government groups have killed 500 Syrian security forces and sparked diplomatic fury by comparing the deadly unrest to the riots in Britain.

Britain's U.N. representative dismissed Syrian Ambassador Bashar Jaafari's "ludicrous" comparison between the handling of the worst British riots in a generation and the killing of protesters on the streets of Syrian cities. Rights groups say over 2,000 people, mainly protesters, have been killed.

Khamis, the feared military commander and son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, was shown on state television on Wednesday, days after rebels reported his death.

Tripoli denied the claim at the time, but a rebel spokesman on Wednesday insisted that Khamis was dead.

Western nations stepped up demands for U.N. measures against President Bashar Assad after the Syrian leader ignored repeated calls for an end to the bloodshed in his country.

But U.N. Security Council battlelines were drawn when Russia's U.N. envoy said calls for sanctions did not help end the crackdown by Syrian security forces in which rights groups say more than 2,000 civilians have died.