Another Syrian brigadier general has fled to Turkey to join opposition fighters, accompanied by five high-ranking officers and more than 30 troops, Anatolia reported Monday.

Some 400 Syrian civilians, most of them women and children, also arrived in the company of the soldiers, the agency added.

The latest defection brings the total number of Syrian generals who have left Syria through the Turkish border to 31 since the uprising erupted in mid-March last year.

But some of these generals have gone back to Syria to join the active fighters inside the conflict-torn country, a Turkish official told AFP, refusing to give an exact number of Syrian generals currently on Turkish soil.

Senior Syrian officers have been crossing into Turkey to link up with the Free Syrian Army on a near-daily basis in recent months, often accompanied by rank-and-file troops.

With the latest arrivals, Turkey has so far welcomed some 46,500 refugees fleeing from the violence in Syria, who are sheltering in several camps along the border.

The Syrian military defectors are staying in a separate camp where security is tighter.

Qatar, Saudi Arabia giving arms to Syria rebels: SNC
Paris (AFP) Aug 6, 2012 - Qatar and Saudi Arabia are giving light arms to Syria's rebels but the fighters do not have the advanced weapons needed to confront Bashar al-Assad's regime, a spokeswoman for the opposition SNC said Monday.

"Rebels on the ground are searching desperately for arms wherever they can find them," a spokeswoman for the Syrian National Council, Bassma Kodmani, told France's Europe 1 radio.

"There are certain countries that are providing light and conventional weapons," she said.

Asked which countries, Kodmani said: "It is Qatar, Saudi Arabia, it is maybe a little bit Libya with what it has left over from its own battle."

She said some countries were also providing money to the rebels so they could buy weapons on the black market.

But Kodmani said the rebels were still massively outgunned by pro-regime forces and were lacking "more advanced types of weapons that could be used to confront aviation".

"This is a political decision that the major countries must take, it has not been taken," she said.

Warning of "carnage" in Syria's commercial capital Aleppo, Kodmani condemned the political and diplomatic failure to find a solution to the conflict.

"Waiting for a military solution is catastrophic," she said.

Fighting continued to rage in Syria on Monday, with a bomb blast rocking state television headquarters in the heart of Damascus and the army bombarding a string of rebel neighbourhoods in Aleppo.