The official state news agency quoted the head of the Arab League delegation, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad Al-Thani, as saying the talks were "cordial and frank" and that the ministers would meet Syrian officials again on Oct. 30.

"What is hoped is that the violence will end, a dialogue will start and reforms will be achieved," Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby said before the delegation's departure from Cairo. The team also has ministers from Egypt, Algeria, Oman, Sudan and Yemen.

In Umayyad Square in central Damascus, tens of thousands of people gathered for what has become a weekly show of support for Assad organized by authorities, wire reports said.

The rally took place before the envoys arrived following an Arab League call on Oct. 16 for the opposition and government to hold a dialogue within 15 days at the League headquarters in Cairo.

In the central city of Homs, a hotbed of opposition to Assad, people held a general strike to protest against his crackdown on seven months of unrest. Residents and activists said most employees stayed at home and shops were closed in the city of one million. One resident said armed opponents of Assad enforced the strike. Army gunfire, which killed 11 people across Syria on Wednesday, also kept people off the streets.

In the town of Hamrat, north of Homs, suspected army deserters killed nine soldiers in an attack on a bus with a rocket-propelled grenade, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.