5.44pm BST

Here's a summary of the latest developments:

Syria

• US defence secretary Leon Panetta confirmed that US troops have been sent to the Jordan-Syria border as part of contingency plans to stop the violence in Syria spreading south. Officials told the New York Times that a 150-strong task force had been sent while contingency plans for setting up a buffer zone in Syria were being discussed.

• Two Britons arrested at Heathrow Airport over terrorism allegations will be questioned about the kidnapping of a British photographer in Syria. Scotland Yard confirmed that one line of inquiry was whether the pair were involved in the abduction in Syria.

• Turkey's military will respond with greater force if shelling from Syria continues to hit its territory, its chief of staff said today, as clashes between the Syrian army and rebels intensified along the border. "We responded but if it continues we will respond with greater force," state television TRT quoted Turkey's chief of staff, General Necdet Ozel, as saying.

•Iranian hostages, who rebels threatened to kill over the weekend are in "good health," according to Iran's foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi. IRNA news agency quoted him saying "Thanks to God, all of them are in good health."

• After three days' fighting, rebels appear to control most of Maaret al-Numan, a strategically important town in Idlib province on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. It was originally captured by rebels in June but retaken by government forces in August.

• Syrian government forces attempting to drive rebel fighters out of Homs have run into difficulties of their own making, according to a resident in the city. Constant bombardment of the Khalidiya and Hamidiya has made many streets impassable – with the result that tanks cannot enter, the resident told the Guardian.

• A cameraman for the Syrian pro-government al-Ikhbariya TV channel has been killed by rebels in Deir Ezzor province. The Syrian Documents website names him as Muhammad al-Ashram.

Libya

• US state department officials have given their most detailed description yet of the events in Benghazi that led to the death of a US ambassador, and backed away from earlier assertions that the incident was triggered by protests against an anti-Islam video. The officials briefed reporters on the eve of a congressional hearing that is expected to focus on security missteps by the department.

• Saif al-Islam Gaddafi's lawyer has warned the international criminal court that that any trial in Libya will be "not motivated by a desire for justice but a desire for revenge." Melinda Taylor, who was detained in Libya for a month this summer after visiting her client, was speaking at the second day of hearing in the Hague on where Gaddafi should be tried.

• Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, and Sir Mark Allen, a former senior MI6 officer, have been cited as key defendants in court documents that describe in detail abuse meted out to Libyan dissidents and their families after being abducted and handed to Muammar Gaddafi's secret police with the help of British intelligence. The documents accuse Straw of misleading MPs about Britain's role in the rendition of two leading dissidents – Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi – and say MI6 must have known they risked being tortured.

• A US security officer, who worked in Libya, twice asked his superiors for more security at the US consulate in Benghazi months before an attack that killed the US Chris Stevens and three others, the LA Times reports. Eric Nordstrom, a regional security official at the US embassy in Tripoli until July, told investigators that he sent two cables to the State Department in March and July and asked that more diplomatic security agents be assigned to the lightly guarded compound in Benghazi.

Jordan

• King Abdullah has appointed Abdullah Ensour as prime minister to prepare for a parliamentary election early next year. Ensour is Jordan's fourth prime minister this year and the twelfth since King Abdullah came to the throne in 1999.

Lebanon

• At least 72 migrant workers were beaten by the Lebanese security forces on Sunday night, according to Human Rights Watch which spoken to 25 of the victims. It called for judicial investigation into the beatings which occurred in Beirut's Geitawi districts.