Syrian army defectors on Monday announced the creation of a higher military council to "liberate" the country from President Bashar al-Assad.

"After consultations with dissident officers, an accord was reached to form the Higher Revolutionary Council in order to liberate Syria from this gang," the council said in a statement, referring to Assad's embattled regime.

Syria's Muslim Brotherhood on Monday accused Russia, China and Iran of being complicit in what it said was a "massacre" being carried out by the embattled regime in Damascus, which it likened to the Nazis.

"We consider Russia, China and Iran as direct accomplices to the horrible massacre being carried out against our people," the group's spokesman Zouheir Salem said in a statement issued from London.

A "terrorist group" blew up an oil pipeline on Monday in the Syrian protest hub of Homs, the official SANA news agency reported.

"An armed terrorist group launched a sabotage attack on an oil transport pipeline in the al-Sultanieh area near Jober in the Baba Amro neighborhood of Homs, triggering a fire," the agency said.

Syrian authorities on Monday said armed "terrorist gangs" were behind the latest violence in Homs, where activists accused government forces of launching a fierce assault on the flashpoint city.

State television said the alleged gangs had been planting bombs which exploded while they were being primed, killing many of the "terrorists."

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Monday condemned as "hysterical" the West's angry reaction to a Russian veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the crackdown on protestors in Syria.

"Some comments from the West on the U.N. Security Council vote, I would say, are indecent and bordering on hysteria," Lavrov told reporters in Moscow. "Such hysterical comments are aimed at suppressing what is actually happening."

The army raids and airdrops in the northern villages of Lebanon faced high criticism by the opposition as the military stressed that these operations will be followed by several more.

A military source told An Nahar newspaper on Monday that the operations that began over the weekend were planned a long time ago, but weather conditions hindered them.

Foreign ministers from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) will meet in the Saudi capital later this week to discuss developments in Syria, Oman's foreign minister said on Monday.

The announcement came just two days after China and Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning a deadly crackdown by Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime on nearly 11 months of protests.

China on Monday denied U.S. accusations it was protecting the Syrian regime, after drawing international criticism for vetoing a U.N. resolution condemning a deadly crackdown on protests by Damascus.

Beijing called on both sides in the conflict to halt violence, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused China and Russia of "protecting the brutal regime in Damascus", calling their veto of the resolution a "travesty".

Syrian forces rained rockets and shells down on protest hubs on Monday, activists said, as another 66 civilians died in the regime's crackdown on dissent.

The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) said the regime was surrounding Homs with tanks ahead of "a major offensive" and warned of a "genocide" in the central Syrian city.

Iran on Sunday welcomed the Russian and Chinese veto on a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning its ally Syria for its crackdown on dissent, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"By vetoing the proposed sanctions China and Russia have been just," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said.