Switzerland's highest court has refused to lift an entry ban on a cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was seeking to travel to the country to fight sanctions imposed by Bern.

Hafez Makhlouf, who heads Damascus' secret services, counts among the regime's hardliners, and is alleged to have been in charge of the brutal repression against demonstrators.

The Arab League chief said on Monday that snipers and gunfire continue to threaten civilian lives in Syria and called for the shootings to end, as activists heaped criticism on the mission.

But Nabil al-Arabi defended the observers in his first remarks since the Arab monitors were deployed in Syria a week ago, saying the "mission needs more time."

Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh defended Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn over his statements on the presence of al-Qaida in Lebanon, saying

President Michel Suleiman and Premier Najib Miqati know that the information is true.

Former Premier Saad Hariri slammed the Syrian regime on Monday for killing more protestors despite the presence of observers seeking to implement an Arab deal endorsed by Syria.

“It’s unbelievable,” Hariri tweeted, adding that the Syrian regime said it wants reform and signed the Arab protocol but continued its deadly crackdown on protestors.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour defended the government on Monday against critics that it was showing division over the alleged presence of al-Qaida in Lebanon.

In an interview with the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa daily, Mansour said that Interior Minister Marwan Charbel did not contradict Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn, who had claimed that al-Qaida fighters were active in the eastern border town of Arsal.

An Arab League advisory body called on Sunday for the immediate withdrawal of an observer mission in Syria saying the deadly crackdown on protest continues despite the presence of monitors.

The speaker of the Arab parliament, ِAli Salem al-Diqbassi, urged Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi to "immediately pull out the Arab observers, considering the continued killing of innocent civilians by the Syrian regime."

Syrian authorities on Saturday seized “quantities of weapons and over 1,000 narcotic tablets near Sweid bridge on the Syrian-Lebanese border and in both cities of al-Qusayr and Tal Kalakh in Homs” near the border with Lebanon, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA reported Sunday.

“The weapons included PKM (machineguns), 14 anti-tank shells, 14 RPGs and various rifles,” SANA said.

Syrian pro-democracy protesters saw the New Year in with demonstrations, activists said, as a child was reportedly shot dead, becoming the first victim in 2012 of the regime's crackdown on dissent.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces shot dead four people in the central flashpoint province of Homs and three in the central province of Hama.

Arab League officials monitoring violence in Syria appear to be in conflict over whether government snipers are perched on rooftops in the southern flashpoint city of Daraa.

In a video released by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a man wearing an orange vest with the Arab League logo said in Daraa: "There are snipers; we have seen them with our own eyes."

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour praised on Saturday Russia’s position on the Syrian crisis, noting that it had called against foreign meddling in the Arab state since the beginning of the unrest.

He made his statements after holding a meeting with Russian Ambassador Alexander Zasypkin during which he received a letter from his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on the situation in Syria.