Syria is determined to "restore security" regardless of the latest Arab League initiatives to end bloodshed, a government official said, in a report Monday by SANA state news agency.

"This decision will not prevent the Syrian government from fulfilling its responsibilities in protecting its citizens and restoring security and stability," the unnamed official was quoted as saying.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati ruled out on Monday the return of political assassinations in Lebanon, saying that any leads in this matter are being tackled by the concerned security authorities.

He told LBC television that will be broadcast later on Monday: “Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare informed me that he will release an updated version of the indictment in the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri.”

Russia said on Monday that a ceasefire needed to be established in Syria before a joint U.N.-Arab peacekeeping mission could be deployed in the violence-wracked nation.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was studying a new Arab League initiative for the body to form a joint peacekeeping force with the United Nations, adding that Moscow had questions about certain points.

China refused Monday to say if it backs an Arab League call for the U.N. Security Council to create a joint peacekeeping force for Syria, the latest bid to end the violence that has killed thousands there.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin refused to directly answer repeated questions on whether it would support the league's call. He said China backs the Arab League's "political mediation efforts."

Regime forces resumed their assault on the Syrian protest city of Homs on Monday, activists said, after Damascus rejected an Arab plan to send a peacekeeping force to the unrest-hit country.

Shortly before sunrise, the army launched mortars into Baba Amr, a rebel stronghold in the central city, as forces swept through southern Daraa province arresting dissidents, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Premier Najib Miqati returned to Beirut on Sunday, a day earlier than schedule, to contain the tension in the northern port city of Tripoli that has left at least three people dead.

Upon his return from a two-day official visit to Paris, Miqati held a telephone conversation with Speaker Nabih Berri and informed him that he came to Beirut a day earlier to end the “abnormal situation” in the capital of the North.

A commission tasked with drafting a new Syrian constitution submitted a draft charter to President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday, the official SANA news agency reported.

"Assad on Sunday received a copy of the new draft constitution from the head of the national committee charged with drafting a new constitution for the Syrian Arab Republic," SANA said.

The Syrian community in Lebanon on Sunday staged a demonstration outside the Chinese embassy in the Beirut district of Bir Hassan to hail Beijing's veto at the Security Council that blocked U.N. action against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Carrying Syrian flags and portraits of Assad, the demonstrators shouted slogans in support of the Syrian leader and denounced a number of Western and Arab countries critical of the Assad government.

The Arab League said it agreed on Sunday to open contacts with Syria's opposition and to ask the United Nations to form a joint peacekeeping force to the unrest-swept country in moves swiftly rejected by Syria.

Arab diplomats "will open channels of communication with the Syrian opposition and offer full political and financial support, urging (the opposition) to unify its ranks," it said in a statement obtained by Agence France Presse.

Hizbullah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem on Sunday hailed the army for “protecting the Lebanese border” and rejected alleged efforts to transform Lebanon into a launchpad for settling political scores.

During a ceremony held in the Ghobeiri neighborhood of Beirut’s southern suburbs, Qassem “saluted the Lebanese army that is safeguarding the Lebanese border, particularly in the northern areas.”