"Five soldiers of Syria's regular army were killed and 13 others wounded in fighting with a group of deserters at a checkpoint in the village of Al-Ziraa," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Britain-based watchdog, in statements received in Nicosia, also said that security forces had shot dead eight civilians on Sunday: five in the Damascus region, two in Idlib, northwest Syria, and one in Homs province. Damascus on Monday rejected an Arab League plan for President Bashar al-Assad to transfer power to his deputy, following 10 months of anti-regime protests that have cost thousands of lives in a crackdown by security forces.