Syria's main opposition group pleaded Monday for weapons and urgent military intervention to defend civilians from bombardments by President Bashar Assad's army.

"We need a humanitarian intervention and we are asking for military intervention for the Syrian civilians," Syrian National Council leader Abdel Basset Sayda said after meeting Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo.

CIA chief David Petraeus is visiting Turkey for meetings on regional issues, a U.S. official told Agence France Presse on Monday.

The official would not say with whom the CIA chief would be meeting and where.

Veteran war surgeon Jacques Beres has his own compelling reasons for urging that a no-fly zone be imposed over Syria -- one bomb dropped by the regime leaves more wounded than doctors can fix in a day.

Working undercover in the northern city of Aleppo, which has been pounded for weeks as President Bashar Assad's forces seek to overrun rebel bastions, Beres insists the death toll in the Syrian conflict is higher than what is reported.

A reporter with Israel's Haaretz newspaper, Uri Blau, was sentenced to four months of community service under a plea bargain for possessing classified military documents, the court said on Monday.

"I accept the plea bargain reached by the parties, and sentence the accused to a single term of four months' jail which may be served by means of community service... starting from 11 September 2012," wrote Judge Ido Druyan at Tel Aviv Magistrates Court.

The success of a new international peace envoy to Syria depends on states such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and not on Syria, a Syrian minister told reporters in Damascus on Monday.

"The success of Lakhdar Brahimi does not depend on Syria," said Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi.

More than 5,200 Filipinos are waiting to flee the fighting in Syria but bureaucratic requirements are delaying their return, a foreign department official said Monday.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis said a total of 5,228 Filipinos have signed up at the Philippine Embassy in Damascus for repatriation, the largest number recorded since the outbreak of fighting.

An Egyptian security official said Monday some 20 tanks have been withdrawn from the Sinai Peninsula after a month-long deployment in an anti-terrorism military offensive.

The tank deployment earlier this month brought complaints from Israel as the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries restricts heavy weapons in the peninsula, which borders the Jewish state.

A car bomb on Monday ripped through Jaramana, a mainly Christian and Druze suburb of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that there were unconfirmed reports of several wounded.

This is not the first time the southeastern suburb has been hit by a car bomb. On August 28, at least 27 people attending a funeral for two supporters of the Damascus regime were killed in a similar attack, according to the Britain-based watchdog.

The new head of the International Committee of the Red Cross will travel to Damascus on Monday and will meet Syrian President Bashar Assad the following day, his office said.

"Peter Maurer arrives today (Monday) in Syria for a three-day visit, the first since he took up his duties as president on July 1," the ICRC said in a statement, adding that Maurer would meet Assad and other top Syrian officials.

France's foreign minister said Monday Western powers are preparing a tough response in case Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime deploys chemical or biological weapons in its civil war.

Laurent Fabius said: "Our response ... would be massive and blistering."