Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday appointed a new defense minister, state television reported, amid mounting Arab condemnation of nearly five months of deadly crackdown on dissent.

"President Assad has signed a decree naming General Daoud Rajha as the head of the defense ministry," the television report said.

Hundreds of people demonstrated in central Tunis Monday to demand that members of the toppled Ben Ali regime be stopped from re-entering the political scene or escaping justice for alleged crimes.

The protest, the latest in a series in Tunisia since Zine el Abidine Ben Ali was forced out in January by a popular uprising, came days after courts freed two ministers in the former system who were facing corruption charges.

The head of the 22-member Arab League on Monday urged Syrian authorities to launch a "serious dialogue" with protesters seeking change in the autocratic country.

"What is happening in Syria worries the Arab League and all countries," Nabil al-Arabi told reporters.

EU nations are eyeing new sanctions against Syrian individuals and businesses linked to the ongoing clampdown on dissent by President Bashar al-Assad's regime, EU diplomats said Monday.

The sources, who asked not to be identified, said the European Union was looking at adding to a list of 38 people and businesses already targeted by a an asset freeze and visa ban.

The top Sunni Muslim authority on Monday called on Syrian authorities to immediately end" the bloodshed, saying that the crackdown on protesters is a "tragedy" that has gone too far.

"Al-Azhar was patient for a long time and avoided talking about the situation in Syria because of its sensitive nature ... but the situation has gone too far and there is no other solution but to put an end to this Arab and Islamic tragedy," the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, said in a statement.

Kuwait and Bahrain on Monday decided to recall their ambassadors from Damascus, increasing the regional isolation of President Bashar al-Assad, a day after Saudi Arabia took the same step.

"We have decided to recall our ambassador from Syria for consultations," Kuwait’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed al-Sabah told reporters after meeting a parliamentary committee.

Syrian President Bashar Assad will forfeit legitimacy if his regime continues to carry out acts of violence against demonstrators in his country, the German government warned on Monday.

"If President Assad maintains his refusal to engage in dialogue with the Syrian people and continues to resort to violence, the German government will consider he has forfeited his legitimacy in further overseeing the fate of his country," deputy government spokesman Christoph Steegmans told a regular press conference.

Syrian security forces shot dead a mother and her two children fleeing an army assault on the eastern city of Deir al-Zour on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human rights cited residents as saying.

"The woman and her two children were trying to flee the Huweika district for somewhere safer when they were targeted by a security patrol," the rights group quoted residents as saying, adding that the father of the family was wounded.

The group of hackers known as Anonymous has claimed taking over the Syrian government Ministry of Defense website publishing on it a message in support for the Syrian people.

Visitors to the Syrian military department's website have been greeted with the Anonymous logo and images and links to videos of dead protesters hours after activists said on Sunday that security forces backed by tanks killed scores of civilians in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour and the central town of Hula.

Embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has decided not to return to Yemen due to the U.S. pressure on him, the Pan Arab daily Ashaqr al-Aqsat reported on Monday.

U.S. sources told the daily that Saleh fears to be tried if he returned to Yemen like ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.