UN Security Council to held meeting on the crisis in Syria.

Western countries are preparing to push for a tough resolution at a UN Security Council meeting on the crisis in Syria, BBC News reported.

Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi will be asking the Council to back the League's new plan calling on President Bashar al-Assad to resign.

Western foreign ministers who back the Arab plan will try to overcome Russia's threat to veto any such resolution.

A Syrian Foreign Ministry official said Syria would "defeat the policies of chaos", state news agency Sana said.

"We regret that those statements are still coming from countries accustomed to making the Middle East a field for their foolishness and failing experiments," the official added.

The plan proposed by the Arab League, and backed by the US, UK and France, calls for Mr Assad to hand power to a deputy who would then form a government of national unity.

Moscow said this is "not balanced" and would "leave open the possibility of intervention" in Syria's affairs.

The White House said on Monday that Mr Assad had lost control of Syria, adding "he will go".

The US called on countries to decide where they stand on what it calls the Syrian regime's brutality.

The Local Co-ordination Committees, a network of anti-government groups, said on its Facebook page Monday's death toll was 95, including 72 in the central city of Homs. In Deraa, in the south, 15 people were killed, while six deaths were reported in the Damascus suburbs.

Their claims cannot be independently verified, as the the BBC and other international media are severely restricted inside Syria.
However, heavy machine-gun fire was reported in the restive Bab Amr district of Homs, while activists said at least 225 tank shells were fired at the eastern suburbs of Damascus.

Earlier, reports said the Syrian army had regained control of some Damascus suburbs recently held by rebel forces.