The United Nations is "seriously concerned" about its shrinking peacekeeping force in the Golan Heights and is seeking to recruit troops from Europe to fill the gap, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.

The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), based on the tense border between Syria and Israel, has seen its numbers dwindle to around 530 from 1,050 after Japan and Croatia withdrew their contingents.

The Cairo-based Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's top authority, voiced concern on Monday about the infiltration of gunmen into "peaceful" protests across Egypt demanding the resignation of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

"Al-Azhar is monitoring with deep concern what is happening, particularly reports of casualties and the arrest of arms smugglers who seem to have infiltrated the peaceful scene in a bid to turn their weapons on gatherings and cause further bloodshed," a statement said.

A Bahraini court acquitted on Monday two police officers, including a woman, on trial for torturing six Shiite doctors during the 2011 uprising against the Sunni regime, a judicial source said.

The two officers had been accused in March 2011 of having "used force, torture, and threats" against the doctors who had been arrested over their roles during the uprising, the source added.

Tunisia's first parliamentary debate on the draft constitution was suspended on Monday amid chaotic scenes in the National Assembly, with tensions between the ruling Islamists and their opponents flaring over the long-delayed text.

The North African country's political stability remains fragile, two and a half years after the revolution that ousted former strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, adding urgency to the need for the new text.

The Muslim Brotherhood has proven a failure in Egypt, Syria's Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi said on Monday, as Egyptian protesters demonstrated for a second consecutive day against Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.

"It is clear the Muslim Brotherhood is incapable... of running the state in Egypt. Their model has failed for ever," Zohbi said at a press conference broadcast by Syrian state television.

A Saudi court sentenced 18 men, some of them foreigners, to jail terms of between seven months and 15 years on Monday after convicting them of fighting in foreign conflicts on behalf of Sunni Muslim extremist groups, state media reported.

The official SPA news agency did not specify which foreign conflicts they were found guilty of participating in but in recent months Saudi officials have expressed growing concern about Saudi volunteers fighting in the war in Syria, and Saudis have also been active in Iraq.

Turkey, Jordan and Iraq must fully reopen their border crossings to allow thousands of Syrians fleeing their country's war to seek refuge, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

"Iraqi, Jordanian, and Turkish border guards are pushing back tens of thousands of people trying to flee Syria," the international rights group said, adding that the lives of those trying to flee were in danger.

A Jordanian air force captain has allegedly "deserted" and joined Syria's jihadist Al-Nusra Front to fight against President Bashar Assad's forces, a member of his family and a Salafist leader said on Monday.

"Ahmad Atallah Shbeib al-Majali, born in 1984, took a leave from his job last Wednesday and traveled to Turkey on Friday and from there he went to Syria to join the rebels," the family member told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Arab states of the Gulf on Monday urged the U.N. Security Council to hold an emergency meeting to prevent a "massacre" in Syria's central city of Homs, the target of a fierce offensive by regime troops.

In a statement, the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members announced they are "following with deep concern... the unjust siege Syrian regime forces are imposing on Homs... with military support from Hizbullah and under the umbrella of Iran's Revolutionary Guards".

Syrian President Bashar Assad's troops pressed a fierce three-day assault against rebels in the central city of Homs on Monday but failed to make any new advances, a watchdog and activists said.

Fighting between rebels and regime loyalists raged on the edges of insurgent-held districts, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.