Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said Tuesday the Western and Arab-backed draft resolution will not achieve a compromise in the 10-month long rebellion against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's 11-year autocratic rule.

Syrian opposition activists said government troops were consolidating control over eastern suburbs of Damascus Tuesday after several days of heavy fighting with rebels who briefly seized the communities just several kilometers from Assad's seat of power.

The activists said Monday's fighting between pro-Assad forces and the loosely-organized rebels in the Damascus suburbs and the central province of Homs killed about 100 people, many of them civilians. It was not possible to confirm the casualties independently because Syria bars foreign media from operating freely in the country.

The Moroccan-sponsored draft resolution is expected to be formally presented to the Security Council later Tuesday. Key supporters of the draft are due to appear at the session, including Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby, Qatar's prime minister, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her counterparts from Britain and France.

A Look at the Arab League

• The League of Arab States, or Arab League, is an association of 22 Arab states, based in Cairo.
• It was founded on March 22, 1945 in Cairo, with the aim of strengthening the relationships between member states through political, cultural and economic cooperation.
• The first six members of the organization were Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan (later renamed Jordan), Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Yemen joined a few months later.
• Nabil Elaraby was elected secretary-general of the Arab League in May 2011.
• Syria's membership was suspended in November 2011, following bloodshed caused by brutal government crackdowns on pro-democracy protests.
• On Jan. 22, 2012, the Arab League proposed to Syria that President Bashar al-Assad should transfer power to a deputy and form a national unity government within two months. The plan was rejected by Syria.

Western news agencies that obtained copies of the document say it endorses an Arab League plan requiring Syrian President Assad to transfer power to a deputy and form a unity government to prepare for elections under international supervision. They say the draft also warns of unspecified further measures if Syria does not comply. The Assad government already has rejected the plan as a violation of its sovereignty.

Russia has vowed to oppose any Security Council measure that it believes could give Western powers a pretext for military action against the Assad government. Syria is a long-time Russian military ally that provides Moscow with a naval base on the Mediterranean coast and frequently buys Russian military supplies.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday he hopes the Security Council will act in a coherent manner that reflects the wishes of the international community for an end to Syria's unrest. He was speaking on a visit to the Jordanian capital Amman.

The Syrian government accuses armed terrorists of driving the anti-Assad revolt and killing 2,000 security personnel. The United Nations estimated the death toll from the unrest at 5,400 earlier this month, before it stopped updating the figure because of difficulties in obtaining information.

Indian government officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told reporters Tuesday that Dassault was the lowest bidder and beat out the Eurofighter consortium to clinch the contract.

Further negotiations were expected to take place before India finalizes the agreement to buy Dassault's Rafale fighter jet.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed news of the deal and said the talks would begin "very soon."

James Hardy, Asia Pacific editor of Jane's Defense Weekly, said Dassault has been selected as the preferred bidder, but that "this means nothing" until the contract is signed.

In April, India rejected bids from U.S.-based Boeing and Lockheed Martin, as well as bids from Russian and Swedish firms.

Under the deal, 18 fighter jets will be delivered ready-made, while 108 jets will be built in India.

India is the world's largest arms importer and is spending billions of dollars to upgrade its defense capabilities, with an eye on rival Pakistan to the west and China to the east.

French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet had warned in December that production of the Rafale jet could be stopped if foreign buyers were not found.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

Maulavi Qalamuddin, who once led the group's religious police, said Sunday the delegation includes several former officials, as well as a former secretary to the Taliban's leader Mullah Omar.

Qalamuddin said the talks include the possible release of Taliban prisoners from the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He added the delegation traveled to Qatar from Pakistan, a possible sign that Islamabad might support the peace process.

Pakistani officials have declined to comment on the country's role in contacts between the Taliban and the United States. But a Foreign Ministry spokesman ((Abdul Basit)) has reiterated that Islamabad will continue to make contributions toward achieving peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Also on Sunday, Pakistan said Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar will travel to Afghanistan on Wednesday to discuss the war on terror and political reconciliation efforts aimed at ending the 10-year armed conflict.

Khar is expected to meet with her Pakistani counterpart, Zalmai Rassoul, and make a "courtesy call" on President Hamid Karzai.

The efforts aimed at promoting peace and reconciliation suffered major setbacks recently.

Last September, Afghanistan's top peace negotiator and former President, Burhanuddin Rabbani, was killed in his home in Kabul by a suicide bomber posing as a Taliban envoy. Afghan officials said the attack was planned in Pakistan and carried out by a Pakistani citizen. Islamabad has denied any involvement in the killing.

In November, the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border U.S. airstrike near the Afghan border dealt another blow to reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan.

Following the raid, Pakistan suspended cooperation with U.S. and NATO forces, which led to shutting down NATO supply lines through its territory to Afghanistan and ordering the United States to vacate an air base in southwestern Baluchistan province.

Islamabad said the restoration of the ties is contingent on approval by Pakistan's parliament, which is due to meet early next month.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon Thursday that the

Highlights of the U.S. Defense Department's proposed budget for fiscal year 2013:

Billions of dollars in cuts:
The Pentagon wants $525 billion for 2013, $6 billion less than this year's request. For Afghanistan and other overseas operations, the department seeks another $88 billion, down from $115 billion this year. Overall, the plan aims to save $259 billion in the next five years and $487 billion in the next decade.

A "smaller," "leaner" military:
The Army would shrink from 562,000 active duty soldiers today to 490,000 by 2017. The force would still be larger than it was when the United States was attacked September 11, 2001. The Marine Corps numbers would fall from 202,000 to 182,000.

Out with the old, delaying the new:
The Air Force would retire a number of older planes, including about two dozen C-5A cargo aircraft and 65 C-130 cargo planes. The Navy would keep 11 aircraft carriers, but retire seven cruisers earlier than planned, and delay purchase of other vessels, including a submarine. The purchase of F-35 fighter jets also would be slowed.

Focus on Asia and the Middle East:
The U.S. would maintain its presence in the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East and base combat ships in Singapore and patrol craft in Bahrain. The budget would also eliminate two Army brigades in Europe.

New investments for new challenges:
The military would increase the number of special operations forces and invest in more capability in the cyber world.

Closing domestic military bases:
To identify additional savings, the Obama administration will ask Congress to consider a new round of domestic base closures.

The administration will request a 2013 defense budget of $525 billion. That is $6 billion less than the request for the current fiscal year, which ends September 30.

Panetta said the plan is to increase the Pentagon budget to $567 billion by 2017.

He said the defense department is also asking for an additional $88 billion for overseas operations to maintain support for troops in Afghanistan.

The plan also includes a shift in focus to the Asia Pacific region and the Middle East.

The announcement marks the start of this year's annual budget debate. The White House is expected to send its national budget plan to Congress in mid-February.

President Barack Obama unveiled the new strategic plan for the military earlier this month.

More cuts are expected in the years ahead, as the Pentagon reduces the number of troops, delays or trims plans for buying new ships, aircraft and weapons, and shifts its focus to creating a more agile force.

Congress and the Obama administration battled all last year over the federal budget and national debt. Republicans in Congress have opposed White House efforts to raise revenue in addition, and said the administration's proposed budget cuts were insufficient.

However, many Republicans support deeper cuts in domestic programs rather than the military.

The military said Monday that it does not agree with several portions of the investigation report, calling them factually incorrect.

U.S. defense officials blamed inadequate coordination by both Pakistani and U.S.-led forces for the November 26 attack. The U.S. military probe also found that U.S. forces acted in self-defense and with appropriate force after being fired upon.

Pakistan's military on Monday dismissed the U.S. findings and said that holding Pakistan partially responsible for the incident on Pakistan is "unjustified and unacceptable."

The army said that during the incident, Pakistani troops were firing at suspected militants and "at no stage" fired on or in the direction of NATO forces.

Pakistan's military called the NATO attack unprovoked and said that the fundamental cause of the incident was the failure of the coalition "to share its near-border operation with Pakistan at any level."

Pakistan responded to the NATO attack by shutting down the two main overland routes the coalition uses to send nonlethal supplies to Afghanistan.

The border attack brought U.S.-Pakistan relations to a new low point, with ties already strained over the covert U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden last year and a number of U.S. drone strikes targeting militants in Pakistan's northwest.

In the latest strike, Pakistani officials say missiles fired by a U.S. drone hit a vehicle and a house Monday in North Waziristan tribal agency's Degan village, near the Afghan border. Authorities say four militants from Turkmenistan were killed in the attack.

Drone strikes resumed earlier this month after a drop-off in such attacks following the deadly November 26 NATO airstrike.

Pakistan has condemned drone strikes as a violation of the country's sovereignty, but they are believed to be carried out with the help of Pakistani intelligence.

U.S. officials have never publicly acknowledged the missile strikes against militants in Pakistan's tribal areas, but have anonymously confirmed such attacks to various news outlets.

Ready for action at sea, the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet at Bahrain is among the massive military resources that the U.S. has permanently based throughout the region. They are prepared to respond if tensions with Iran escalate into direct military action.

The Iranian military exercises this January are meant to show Tehran’s fire power. However, analysts say that after years of international sanctions, Iran would struggle to fight a war with its aging hardware.

"A lot of it was supplied at the time of the Shah. Others are relatively low quality imports from China and Russia. It has almost no modern surface-to-air missile capabilities. Virtually all of its major combat ships date back to the time of the Shah and have had only limited refitting," explained defense analyst Anthony Cordesman.

But that weakness has not stopped Iran from making threats to close the Strait of Hormuz. It also warned U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, not to return to the Persian Gulf.

The United States says there is room for diplomacy, but its forces will not allow an Iranian blockade.

"We cannot tolerate Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz, and that's a red line," said U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

The U.S. also warned Iran against developing nuclear weapons, something that could trigger an attack by Israel.

Without powerful or modern equipment, Iran would resort to what analysts say are asymmetric warfare capabilities - small boats, mines and missiles that could be used in small scale, hit-and-run attacks on U.S. forces.

They say a full scale offensive could cost Iran the destruction of its armed forces in a matter of days, in the event of war with the U.S. or Israel.

"The balance of power between the United States and Iran and between Israel and Iran is overwhelmingly in the favor of the United States and Israel," said defense analyst Bruce Riedel.

Iran has plenty of reasons not to engage the U.S. and its allies in a full-scale confrontation, but if it does, U.S. officials say they are ready.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak says a decision by his country on whether to attack Iran's nuclear facilities is "very far off."

"We do not have a decision or a date for a decision," Barak told Israel’s Army Radio.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but Israel and Western countries believe Tehran is trying to build a nuclear weapon that could pose an existential threat to the Jewish state. Therefore, Israel has warned time and again that if international sanctions against Iran fail, it might take military action on its own.

Asked about when Iran might get the atom bomb, Barak said it is not a matter of years. He said most estimates point to a year or year and a half.

He spoke before a visit by the top general of the U.S. military, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey. Barak denied media speculation Dempsey would pressure Israel not to attack Iran. He said military chiefs “prepare their armies for various scenarios ... but they do not pass on political messages.”

Even though Barak played down the prospects of an imminent Israeli attack on Iran, officials say the military option remains as a last resort.

Iran's Al-Alam TV reported that security adviser Jalili made the offer to resume negotiations with the West Saturday, during a meeting with Iranian ambassadors in Tehran. It added that Iran's ambassador to Germany would present the proposal to EU foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton.

The fresh diplomatic overture follows Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz earlier this week. The U.S. later countered with a promise to keep the strait open - calming oil markets, which had been roiled by the earlier threats.

Iran also appeared to have backed down Saturday from an earlier vow to launch long-range missiles during its ongoing 10-day naval maneuvers in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz. Initial reports that it had launched the missiles were followed by later denials by a naval spokesman.

Rear Admiral Mahmoud Mousavi portrayed the naval maneuvers as a mostly defensive action by Iran. He said that the Iranian naval maneuvers in the region of the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean are aimed at keeping the vital Strait of Hormuz open, and that Iran is testing its defensive capabilities, including various missiles in its arsenal.

Reports in the Arab press indicate the U.S. aircraft carrier John C. Stennis had entered the Persian Gulf and was observing the Iranian maneuvers from a distance. The Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway, and closing it would constitute an act of war.

Iran analyst Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute in Washington says Tehran is trying to show that it is capable of closing the Strait of Hormuz, while at the same time trying to resume negotiations over its nuclear program which broke off last January:

"The primary message, I think, from the latest Iranian naval exercises and their suggestion that they are both able and perhaps willing to close down the Strait of Hormuz, if it comes down to that, is for the Iranians to say to the West that they, too, can raise the stakes," said Vatanka. "I think that is the key issue here. But as we've also seen the Iranian state in action elsewhere, there are signs of them again raising the issue of the continuation of the negotiations track, aimed at resolving the nuclear stalemate."

Mehrdad Khonsari of the Center for Arab and Iranian Studies in London argues that Iran's recent threats to close the Strait of Hormuz is an attempt to scare the West into avoiding further economic sanctions now being debated in both the U.S. and Europe:

"The Iranians have resorted to bluffing and to trying to intimidate people into inaction against them," said Khonsari. "So this issue over the Strait of Hormuz, which has gained so much public attention, is really much ado about nothing, because nothing has happened."

He goes on to argue that the Iranians "are in no position to carry out any of their threats," and that most policy-makers in the West Know that. Some analysts say that economic sanctions recently passed by the U.S. Congress preventing dealings with Iran's central bank could prompt Tehran to lash out at the West. Khonsari, however, says the sanctions will not bite too hard, because neither Russia nor China will allow the U.N. Security Council to pass a similar resolution.

The last U.S. military convoy departed from a base in the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyah under cover of darkness and secrecy to prevent any final attacks as it drove across a desert highway toward the border. The American soldiers cheered as they entered Kuwait and said they look forward to reuniting with their families.

The quiet withdrawal was a sharp contrast to the start of the war in March 2003, when U.S.-led forces launched airstrikes over Baghdad as part of what they called a "shock and awe" campaign against Saddam. U.S. and allied ground forces then stormed from Kuwait into Iraq, toppling the minority Sunni dictator of a Shi'ite majority nation within weeks and capturing him by the end of the year.

But, Saddam's fall sparked a Sunni insurgency that evolved into a brutal sectarian conflict between Iraq's Shi'ite and Sunni communities, with violence peaking in 2006. The scale of sectarian and insurgent attacks declined significantly after 2007, when the United States sent a surge of troops to Iraq and Sunni tribal militias sided with U.S. forces against Sunni al-Qaida militants.

At the height of the war, more than 170,000 U.S. troops were stationed in Iraq at more than 500 bases. The United States promised to withdraw them by the end of 2011 under a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi agreement signed by the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush and implemented by his successor and current President Barack Obama.

Iraqis have expressed mixed feelings about the U.S. pullout. Many have celebrated the end of what they called an American occupation and a regaining of Iraq's sovereignty, while others have expressed gratitude for U.S. help in ousting Saddam and introducing democracy.

Many Iraqis also complain that their elected government has not done enough to rebuild the country's war-ravaged infrastructure. Another common concern is that the Iraqi government's delicate power-sharing arrangements may unravel in the absence of U.S. troops and reignite a sectarian conflict.

In a television interview recorded Thursday with U.S. network ABC News, President Obama said the U.S. troop presence in Iraq "succeeded" in giving Iraqis a chance to build a successful future. Obama opposed the war when he ran for office and vowed to end it. Opinion polls have showed a majority of Americans believe the war went on too long.

Lawmakers say they made revisions to the detainee provision in an effort to avoid a threatened presidential veto.

The $662 billion bill authorizes funding for the Defense Department and the national security programs of the Energy Department. It provides money for military personnel, weapons systems and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the fiscal year that began in October.

The bill requires military detention, subject to a presidential waiver, for foreign al-Qaida terrorists who are captured when plotting to attack the United States. A change to the detainee provision exempts American citizens. But the bill does not guarantee suspected terrorists, even U.S. citizens, a trial and leaves open the possibility for indefinite detention.

The measure also would freeze $700 million in assistance until Pakistan gives assurances it is helping to fight the spread of homemade bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. On Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters the U.S. government has not cut aid to Pakistan, although she did note that efforts to do so are under way in Congress. Pakistan is one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid.

Separately, the multi-billion-dollar legislation prohibits the transfer or release of Guantanamo detainees to or within the United States, and prohibits the use of funds to house Guantanamo detainees in the United States.

Lawmakers in both the Senate and House of Representatives hope to approve the legislation and send it to President Barack Obama this week.

The White House had previously warned of a veto for any bill that challenges or constrains the president's authority to collect intelligence, incapacitate terrorists and protect the nation. The Obama administration argues that the military, law enforcement officials and intelligence agents need flexibility to act on a case-by-case basis in dealing with terror suspects.