Violence in Syria killed at least 12 people on Sunday bringing the death toll since the start of the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime to more than 14,100, a monitoring group said.

Those killed since March last year comprised 9,862 civilians, 3,470 soldiers and 783 army deserters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Free Syrian Army on Sunday called on Syrians to begin a campaign of mass "civil disobedience" and also urged the strife-torn regime's military officers and troops to jump ship and join the rebel ranks.

"We call on Syrians to launch a general strike leading to mass civil disobedience," FSA spokesman in Syria Colonel Kassem Saadeddine said in a statement.

Kuwait's ex-premier, Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, has refused for the second time to appear before a parliamentary panel probing graft allegations against him, an official said on Sunday.

"The former prime minister's rejection of the summons by the parliamentary probe committee is a disregard for the Kuwaiti people and its constitutional institutions," head of the panel and lawmaker Faisal al-Muslim said on his Twitter account.

Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki called for a national dialogue Sunday after President Jalal Talabani said his rivals lacked the votes to oust him, but a protracted political row looked set to drag on.

Opponents of the prime minister have for months accused him of monopolizing decision-making, with a political crisis that began in December worsening in recent weeks with open calls from multiple political parties to withdraw confidence from Maliki's national unity government.

Dozens of Kuwaitis are fighting with the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) after crossing from Turkey, the Gulf emirate's al-Qabas newspaper reported on Sunday, citing the fighters' relatives.

The daily said that "dozens of Kuwaitis have crossed the Turkish-Syrian border with the aim of fighting alongside the FSA against Syrian regime forces."

Israeli President Shimon Peres urged the international community on Sunday to bolster efforts to stop the bloodshed in Syria, and said he hoped the rebels "will win" their struggle.

In an interview with Israeli public radio, Peres said the "efforts of the international community are insufficient."

The government of President Bashar Assad is on its "last legs" and has lost control of several cities, the new opposition Syrian National Council leader, Abdel Basset Sayda, told Agence France Presse on Sunday.

"We are entering a sensitive phase. The regime is on its last legs," Sayda said a few hours after he was named as the new SNC president.

Egyptian prosecutors asked parliament on Saturday for permission to investigate an Islamist MP police say was caught performing an "indecent" act with a woman in public, official media reported.

The official MENA news agency quoted a police report saying that Ali Wanis, a cleric and MP for the ultra-conservative al-Nur party, was found engaged in an "indecent" act with a 22-year-old woman in a car parked on a highway on Thursday.

About 2,000 Israeli Arabs protested on Saturday to demand that Syrian President Bashar Assad step down and to show solidarity with Syrian civilians killed by regime forces, an Agence France Presse journalist said.

Marchers in the protest, organized by the Islamic Movement, carried pictures of children killed in the violence in Syria, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that than 13,500 people have died since the uprising broke out almost 16 months ago.

Elections in Libya for a constituent assembly, originally set to be held by June 19, are to be postponed for logistical reasons, electoral commission members said on Saturday.