Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby had originally been expected to travel to Damascus on Wednesday, but Arab diplomats said the visit was delayed at Syria's request. No official explanation was given.

Arab governments broke months of silence over Syria at a meeting in Cairo last week, demanding an end to the bloodshed, and decided to send Elaraby to Damascus to press for political and economic reforms.

An Arab diplomatic source said Damascus delayed the visit after Elaraby met Syrian opposition members and because of a leaked Qatari proposal that had not been adopted for possible demands that Arab states would make to Syria.

A member of the Syrian opposition, Haitham Al-Malih, told Al Jazeera television he was among a group that met Elaraby at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo.

The Arab League, which groups 23 Arab states, confirmed on its website that Elaraby would now visit Syria on Saturday. A League official also said there would be an Arab ministerial meeting on Sept. 13 in Cairo to discuss a number of issues, including Syria.

A representative at the League said there was no plan to suspend Syria's membership in the Arab body, as happened with Libya in February after forces loyal to the now deposed Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi assaulted protesters.

"No one is thinking till now about freezing Syrian membership in the Arab League because every Arab state is keen on stability in Syria," the representative said. "All that Arab foreign ministers asked in the last meeting was to speed up the pace of reforms and stop the violence," he added.

A source at the League said the proposal for Arab demands on Syria drawn up by Qatar included a call for a multi-candidate presidential election in 2014 and forming a national unity government headed by a candidate acceptable to the opposition. The proposal was not approved by League members.

Undaunted by global criticism, Syrian security forces unleashed a barrage of gunfire Wednesday, killing at least 11 people and leaving thousands cowering in their homes, activists and witnesses said.

Nine of the dead were in Homs, a hotbed of opposition to President Bashar Assad's autocratic regime. Two others were shot dead during raids in Sarameen, in northern Syria.

For days, security forces have been pursuing activists and anti-government protesters in Homs. "All through the night, there was shooting. The gunfire didn't stop," a resident of the city told The Associated Press by phone Wednesday. "I can't tell exactly what is going on because it's dangerous to go out."