DOHA/DAMASCUS  - The Arab summit in Doha on Tuesday gave member states the “right” to offer Syrians all means of self-defence including arms, in a resolution on Syria.The Arab Summit affirms the “right of every state to offer all forms of self-defence, including military, to support the resistance of the Syrian people and the Free Syrian Army,” said the resolution.Syrian opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib said Tuesday he had asked that Nato’s Patriot missile system be extended to protect rebel zones inside the war-torn country, as he took up Syria’s seat in the Arab League for the first time. But the White House said that Nato would not provide Patriot missile batteries to protect rebel strongholds in Syria, following a request from opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib. “We are aware of the request,” White House spoksman Jay Carney said. “At this time, Nato does not intend to intervene militarily in Syria,” Carney said. “I think that a Patriot missile battery would follow the definition of military assistance,” Carney said, adding that Patriot anti-missile batteries in Turkey were for self-defense only.Launching into a fiery speech after leading a delegation into a Doha summit to thunderous applause from Arab leaders, Khatib also demanded that the opposition be allowed to represent Syria at the United Nations. “I have asked (US Secretary of State) Mr John Kerry during our meeting to provide Patriot (missile protection) that encompasses northern Syria, and he has promised to look into the matter,” Khatib told the summit. “We are still awaiting a decision from Nato on this matter.”Nato’s sole involvement in Syria’s brutal civil war to date has been to position Patriot missile batteries along the Turkish border in order to prevent any air or missile launches from the Syrian side. Khatib, who threw the opposition into disarray by announcing his resignation on Sunday, made it clear that he was still firmly at the helm of the Syrian National Coalition, the main Syrian opposition umbrella grouping.Taking the seat reserved for the delegation head at the invitation of Qatar Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Khatib was flanked by other senior opposition figures including prime minister Ghassan Hitto. There had been confusion over whether the delegation would be headed by Khatib or by Hitto, in the wake of the Coalition leader’s resignation. Khatib however was the one who did the speaking, after the opposition flag was raised in place of the official Syrian bunting.“We demand ... all forms of support from our friends and brothers including our full right for self-defence and the seat of Syria at the United Nations and at other international organisations,” he told the summit. He called for a “freezing of the funds of the regime which it had stolen from our people,” estimated by the opposition at around two billion dollars. He also stressed that the Syrian people alone would determine the future of their country. “They ask who will rule Syria. The people of Syria will decide, not any other state in this world,” Khatib said, possibly alluding to accusations by Damascus that the rebels are implementing Qatari and Saudi agendas.In his speech, Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi described the Coalition as “the sole and legitimate representative of the Syrian people after it succeeded in forming an interim government.” The seat has been empty since the Arab League suspended Syria’s membership in November 2011 after Damascus rejected an Arab proposal to end violence against protesters and instead pressed a bloody crackdown on dissent.Damascus reacted furiously to the decision of the 22-member grouping. “Shame on you, Arab brothers,” wrote Tishreen state-owned daily, branding the Arab League decision as a “theft”. “This theft that the sheikhdom of Qatar and other collaborator, treacherous, backward Arab regimes have committed by handing the Doha-sponsored Coalition the Syrian state’s membership... is a legal, political and moral crime,” it said.The United Nations on Tuesday named a Swedish scientist to lead an inquiry into the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria, but has barred experts from the major powers from taking part, officials said Tuesday. UN leader Ban Ki-Moon appointed Ake Sellstrom of Sweden, a veteran of 1990s arms investigations in Iraq, to head the inquiry. No definitive mandate for the inquiry has been announced, although the UN said the aim is not to find who staged the alleged attacks. Ban has told the UN Security Council permanent members — the so-called P5 of Britain, China, France, Russia and United States — that they will not be allowed to take part, diplomats said. The decision was taken because of divisions over the worsening two-year-old war between President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and opposition rebels, diplomats said.A suicide bombing in northern Damascus on Tuesday killed three people and wounded several others, state news agency SANA reported, hours after a girl was killed in a mortar attack in the city. “A terrorist suicide bomber blew up a van in the east of Rukn al-Din neighbourhood in Damascus,” SANA said, citing an official as saying at least three people were killed. There were no details on how many people had been injured.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the bombing, saying it had struck near a military supply centre and that preliminary information suggested military personnel were among the casualties.Earlier on Tuesday, in the central Baramkeh district, “a young girl was killed and several other students were injured when mortars fired by terrorists hit a school compound,” SANA said, without giving the victim’s age.Earlier, state television reported a mortar attack on the same district, near SANA’S headquarters, describing it as “a new attack on Syrian media by terrorists”. The attack left three civilians dead, it added, without specifying whether there were journalists among them.Elsewhere in Syria, regime troops seized Baba Amr in the central city of Homs, the Observatory said, two weeks after fighting erupted in the flashpoint district. Rebel fighters had re-entered Baba Amr after the army launched an all-out assault aimed at crushing the insurgency in besieged insurgent enclaves of central Homs.In the sensitive Quneitra district, located on Syria’s ceasefire line with Israel, rebels seized an air defence base, said the Observatory, which relies on a broad network of activists, doctors and lawyers for its reporting.The UN says more than 70,000 people have been killed in Syria since anti-regime protests broke out in March 2011, transforming into an insurgency when the regime unleashed a brutal crackdown.At least 45 people were killed throughout Syria on Tuesday, according to a preliminary toll from the Observatory that was issued before the number of fatalities from the Damascus car bomb was known.