Syria's opposition Muslim Brotherhood on Monday voiced willingness to "study" an Arab League plan for President Bashar al-Assad to transfer power to his deputy and clear the way for a national unity government.

"We see in this initiative elements that reflect seriousness and deserve careful study in the context of achieving our people's demands for justice, freedom, and life with dignity," it said.

At least 22 civilians, five regime troops and an army deserter were killed in fresh violence across Syria on Monday, activists and a rights group said, also reporting a string of clashes between deserters and the army.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces killed 23 people -- "including two children, a rebel soldier and two who died under torture."

The head of the Arab League's observation team to Syria has struck back at critics who say the mission has failed to stop violence between security forces and opposition groups seeking to oust President Bashar Assad.

Gen. Mohammed Ahmed al-Dabi told reporters in Cairo Monday that the mission's job was to never to stop the violence, but to document progress on the League's peace plan.

EU foreign ministers adopted fresh sanctions against Syria's military brass on Monday, targeting a large number of security officials on a new list of people and firms hit by a travel ban and asset freeze.

Ministers targeted 22 people and eight companies in this 11th round of EU sanctions to protest the ongoing repression in Syria, said a diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Syria has signed a $550 million (425 million euro) contract to purchase 36 Yak-130 advanced training fighter planes from Russia, the Kommersant business daily reported on Monday.

The deal was signed in December with Russia's Rosoboronexport state defense corporation, Kommersant cited a source close to the agency as saying, adding that production of the jets would begin once the advance payment was made.

A new plan by the Arab League to end violence in Syria was "unattainable" and would allow President Bashar Assad's regime more time to pursue its bloody crackdown, an opposition group said on Monday.

"The Syrian people have lost confidence in the Arab League's ability to stop the regime’s ongoing bloodshed," the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), which organizes anti-regime protests, said in a statement received in Nicosia.

Syria on Monday rejected an Arab League plan for President Bashar al-Assad to transfer power to his deputy, calling the initiative a "flagrant interference," state TV quoted an official as saying.

"Syria rejects the decisions taken which are outside an Arab working plan, and considers them an attack on its national sovereignty and a flagrant interference in internal affairs," the official was quoted as saying.

Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Sunday decided to go to the U.N. Security Council to seek its support for the Arab League’s decisions aimed at resolving the Syrian crisis.

The Arab League "has decided to go to the U.N. Security Council to seek its support for the Arab initiative and we're not seeking internationalization or a military solution," Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, the head of an Arab taskforce on Syria, clarified after the meeting.

Lebanese citizen Khaled al-Youssef was wounded on Sunday when he stepped on a landmine planted by the Syrian army on the Syrian-Lebanese border, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.

Youssef, who suffered a severe leg injury according to NNA, was rushed by a Lebanese Red Cross ambulance to the Our Lady of Peace Hospital in the northern town of al-Qbayyat.

The Syrian National Council, the country's largest opposition group, called on Sunday for the Syria file to be transferred to the U.N. Security Council for referral to the International Criminal Court.

The SNC "asks the Arab League to transfer the Syria file to the Security Council as quickly as possible," said a statement the group adopted at a meeting in Cairo, which coincided with a gathering of Arab foreign ministers to mull the future of their much-criticized Syria observer mission.