A group of prominent Syrian opposition members on Tuesday criticized the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Syrian National Coalition and accused regional governments of "hegemony" over the body.

In a letter addressed to the Arab League, which is meeting in Doha, the group warned that the opposition was experiencing a crisis as a result.

Arab League leaders gathered for an annual summit in Doha on Tuesday gave member states the "right" to offer Syrians all means of self-defense, including arms supplies.

The Arab summit affirms the "right of every state to offer all forms of self-defense, including military, to support the resistance of the Syrian people and the Free Syrian Army," a resolution said.

A suicide bombing in northern Damascus on Tuesday killed three people and wounded several others, state news agency SANA reported, hours after a girl was killed in a mortar attack in the city.

"A terrorist suicide bomber blew up a van in the east of Rukn al-Din neighborhood in Damascus," SANA said, citing an official as saying at least three people were killed.

A pro-democracy activist and opponent of Egypt's ruling Muslim Brotherhood turned himself in to the prosecutor's office for questioning on Tuesday, a day after an order for his arrest.

Alaa Abdel Fattah was "temporarily released" a few hours later, a judicial source said.

An alleged spy cell dismantled last week in Saudi Arabia had "direct links" to Iran's intelligence services, the kingdom's interior ministry said on Tuesday.

"Preliminary investigations and physical evidence that has been collected as well as the defendants' statements on this case have all revealed direct links between this cell and Iranian intelligence services," a ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

At least one child was killed and several others were wounded on Tuesday in a mortar attack on a compound housing several schools in central Damascus, a monitoring group and state news agency SANA said.

"A young girl was killed and several other students were injured when mortars fired by terrorists hit a school compound in the Baramkeh district of Damascus," SANA said, without giving the victim's age.

Egyptian authorities on Tuesday proceeded with the extradition to Libya of two former regime officials wanted on charges of corruption, a judicial source told Agence France Presse.

Former Libyan ambassador Ali Maria and and Mohammed Ibrahim, the brother of senior Gadhafi-era official Ahmed Ibrahim, were arrested in Cairo on March 19 along with Moammar Gadhafi's cousin Ahmed Qaddaf al-Dam.

Damascus slammed the Syrian opposition for its "theft" of the country's Arab League seat on Wednesday, calling it a "legal, political and moral crime."

The comments, published in pro-regime newspapers, came shortly before opposition leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib addressed an Arab League summit in Doha, as the seat was handed to the opposition.

Syrian opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib said Tuesday he had asked that NATO's Patriot missile system be extended to protect rebel zones inside the war-torn country, as he took up Syria's seat in the Arab League for the first time.

Launching into a fiery speech after leading a delegation into a Doha summit to thunderous applause from Arab leaders, Khatib also demanded that the opposition be allowed to represent Syria at the United Nations.

Forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar Assad have seized Baba Amr in the central city of Homs, a watchdog said on Tuesday, two weeks after fighting for the flashpoint district erupted.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights issued the report a day after it said opposition activists had found the scorched corpses of 13 people, including five women and four children, in the village of Abel in the countryside near Homs.