Spain said Thursday it had decided to recognize the opposition Syrian National Coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government also invited the Syrian opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib to visit Spain.

The Syrian regime was the only government in the world to lay new landmines this year, campaigners said Thursday as they issued an annual report on the use and effect of the devastating weapons.

Mark Hiznay, the editor of the report for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), said the finding is a significant change from last year, when four governments laid mines, and represents the lowest number since the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty was signed in 1997.

Most communications were down in Syria on Thursday evening as regime troops launched a major offensive in southeastern Damascus along the airport road, monitors said.

The army attacked rebel strongholds in a string of towns along the highway and near the airport, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse by phone. State media also reported operations in the area.

Jordan police said it arrested on Wednesday five Jordanian men, including a terror convict, for planning to infiltrate into neighboring Syria with automatic weapons.

"Police today raided a house in the border town of Torra and arrested five Jordanians and seized automatic weapons, including Kalashnikovs," a police statement said.

Jordan police said it arrested on Wednesday five Jordanian men, including a terror convict, for planning to infiltrate into neighboring Syria with automatic weapons.

"Police today raided a house in the border town of Torra and arrested five Jordanians and seized automatic weapons, including Kalashnikovs," a police statement said.

The European Union agreed Wednesday to extend its sanctions against President Bashar Assad's regime for a further three months, EU diplomats told AFP.

The decision will be formally adopted Thursday when ministers from the 27-nation bloc gather for talks.

Russia strongly condemned on Wednesday twin car bombings that killed more than 50 people near Syria's capital in a neighborhood favorable to the regime of traditional Moscow ally Bashar Assad.

"We condemn in the strongest terms these new terrorist crimes, which nothing can justify," the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the attacks showed "the traditional methods of international terrorist organizations like a-Qaida".

Syrian rebels captured a pilot manning a regime fighter jet downed on Wednesday over Daret Ezza in the northern province of Aleppo, witnesses said.

"Two pilots used parachutes to jump out of the plane after it was hit," a witness told an AFP reporter in the town. "One of them was taken prisoner."

NATO experts on Wednesday began a survey of sites that would serve as suitable locations for the deployment of Patriot missiles along the border with its war-torn neighbor Syria, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

Turkey last week asked NATO partners to deploy the surface-to-air missiles along its frontier with Syria after a series of cross-border shellings, including an attack that left five civilians dead.

Simultaneous car bombings killed more than 50 people and left a trail of destruction in a town near Syria's capital on Wednesday.

The explosives-packed cars were detonated at daybreak in a pro-regime neighborhood of the mainly Christian and Druze town of Jaramana, residents, state media and a rights watchdog reported.