Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi to visit Syria

Nabil al-Arabi will try to negotiate an end to the crisis in Syria Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi is to visit Syria to try to resolve the crisis in the country.The announcement of the visit followed a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in the Egyptian capital , Cairo.Ministers also called on the Syrian government to stop the violence and to usher in reforms.
The UN says more than 2,000 people have been killed since protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in March.
The BBC's Bethany Bell in Cairo says the league is increasing pressure on Damascus but has not suspended Syria from the group, as it did with Libya earlier this year.
A statement said ministers "asked the secretary-general of the Arab League to carry out an urgent mission to Damascus and transmit the Arab initiative to resolve the crisis to the Syrian leadership".
Ministers also called for "respect [for] the right of the Syrian people to live in security and... their legitimate aspirations for political and social reforms".
The league said Syria's stability was crucial to the whole region.
Earlier, Syrian activists said security forces had attacked protesters at a mosque in the capital.
Security officials stormed the al-Rifai mosque in the Kafar Susseh district, the activists said, reportedly wounding the mosque's imam.
A video shot at the mosque shows protesters chanting "the people demand an end to the regime", and calling for the execution of President Assad.
As security forces stormed the mosque, protesters tried to barricade themselves in with bookcases and shoe racks, reports say.
The imam, Osama al-Rifai, who is in his 80s, is said to have been beaten up.
Most foreign journalists have been barred from Syria, making it difficult to verify reports from local activists and officials.
AP is quoting activists as saying at least one man has been killed by snipers fire in the Damascus suburb of Saqba.
The Local Co-ordination Committees and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights both reported the death overnight after troops deployed in the area.
The influential Saudi media group MBC has blocked the transmission of a game show because of the overtly pro-Syrian regime views of its Lebanese star presenter, Georges Kordahi.
In a statement received by AFP on Sunday, the Dubai-based Middle East Broadcasting Corporation said it had "taken this decision through respect for the feelings of the Syrian people."
The Arabic-language version of the US show "You Deserve It" was to have been broadcast from September 10, and episodes had already been recorded.
Kordahi, one of the best known television presenters in the Arab world, had previously presented the Arabic-language version of the worldwide hit game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"
In July, he had said that the wave of protests against Assad's government was "a foreign conspiracy" and that the "Arab Spring" had "sown chaos across the Arab world," Al-Arabiya said on its website.
Kordahi's name had been placed on the "list of shame" on the internet of actors and media personalities who support despotic Arab regimes.
Forces loyal to Assad fought gun battles overnight near a northeast Damascus suburb with army defectors who had refused to shoot at a protest, residents say.
Dozens of soldiers fled into an area of orchards and farmland after pro-Assad forces fired at a large crowd of demonstrators near Harasta to prevent them from marching on the capital, they said.
"The army has been firing heavy machine guns throughout the night at al-Ghouta [old gardens surrounding Damascus] and they were being met with response from smaller rifles," a resident of Harasta told Reuters by phone.
Russia is going to sending a senior envoy to Damascus on Monday, according to the Itar-Tass news agency.
Arab foreign ministers told Syria on Sunday to work to end months of bloodshed "before it's too late", and decided to send Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby to Damascus to push for political and economic reforms.
But in a conciliatory message to Damascus, the ministers also said after an extraordinary meeting in Cairo that Syria's stability was crucial for the Arab World and the whole region.
The Syrian government has sent in troops and tanks to crush five months of street protests demanding President Basharal-Assad steps down, killing at least 2,200 protesters according to the United Nations.
Syria's Arab League ambassador Yousef al-Ahmed attends the Arab league meeting in its headquarters in Cairo August 27, 2011. Arab governments will step up pressure on Syria's President Bashar al-Assad at the meeting on Saturday with a demand he end a crackdown on protesters trying to remove him, a delegate said.