The Arab League on Saturday threatened to take Syria to the U.N. over its deadly crackdown on dissent but an Iraqi mediator said he had "positive" talks in Syria aimed at defusing the nine-month crisis.

The Qatari prime minister warned that the Arab League would take Syria to the U.N. Security Council if it persisted in refusing to allow observers into the country to monitor the protection of civilians.

The Arab League expects the Damascus regime to sign up "soon" to an observer mission intended to monitor the protection of civilians, the bloc's number two Ahmed Ben Helli said on Saturday.

"There are positive signs... I expect the signing will happen soon," Ahmed Ben Helli told AFP ahead of a meeting of an Arab League ministerial commission in Qatar.

An Arab League committee met on Wednesday to decide on a list of Syrian officials who will be banned from Arab countries and whose bank accounts will be frozen, a league official said.

The committee met in the Arab League's Cairo headquarters to press ahead with sanctions against Damascus over a bloody crackdown on protesters who want the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.

Post-revolution Egypt headed to the polls Monday for a chaotic election clouded by violence and a political crisis, the start of a long process to bring democracy to the Arab world's most populous nation.

Ten months after the end of 30 years of autocratic rule by Hosni Mubarak, ousted by popular protests in one of the seminal events of the Arab Spring, up to 40 million voters are being asked to choose a new parliament.

Syrian forces killed at least 15 civilians on Sunday, six of them in the flashpoint region of Homs that has been under siege for several weeks in an operation to crush dissent, a rights group said.

The latest violence came as the Arab League voted to impose a raft of diplomatic and economic sanctions against President Bashar al-Assad's regime for defying an ultimatum to allow observers into the country.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal on Thursday hailed a new era of partnership between their two rival movements at talks in Cairo aimed at cementing a stalled a unity deal.

Speaking to reporters after several hours of talks, the two leaders said they had managed to iron out their differences and turn over a new page in their strained relationship.

The grand imam of Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning, called on Egyptian police on Wednesday not to shoot at protesters demanding democratic change as four more people died in clashes.

As thousands rallied for a fifth straight day in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square, epicenter of the Arab Spring uprising which overthrew veteran president Hosni Mubarak in February, an opinion poll found that 43 percent of Egyptians thought the ruling military was trying to slow down or reverse its gains.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour is expected to travel to Cairo on Thursday to participate in the Arab foreign ministers emergency meeting on Syria in light of the end of the deadline granted to the state to implement reform.

On Lebanon’s stance on the ministers’ decision, Mansour told the National News Agency: “We will wait and see what step they will take and then we will make ours.”

Three more people died in Cairo on Wednesday, a medic said, as violence which has killed dozens raged into a fifth day despite promises by Egypt's military ruler to speed up the transition to democracy.

Clashes broke out in Mohammed Mahmoud street, just off Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square, where thousands of protesters rallied again on Wednesday to demand an immediate end to military rule.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal will meet in Cairo this week despite the unrest rocking Egypt, a senior Hamas official said on Tuesday.

The meeting between the exiled Hamas leader and Abbas, who heads the rival Fatah movement, will go ahead "as scheduled on Thursday," Hamas official Ismail Radwan told AFP.