Syria has signed an agreement to allow observers to monitor its implementation of an Arab League initiative to end the crackdown on anti-government protests.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said the Arab League had accepted amendments demanded by Damascus.

The Arab League said an advance team of observers would go to Syria this week.

Later, the UN General Assembly voted by a strong majority to condemn the Syrian authorities for the crackdown, which has left 5,000 people dead since March.

The non-binding resolution - passed by a vote of 133 to 11, with 43 abstentions - demanded an immediate end to human rights abuses and called on Damascus to implement the Arab League peace plan.

Syria's permanent representative to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, accused some sponsors of the resolution of waging a "political, media and diplomatic war" against the country.

Meanwhile, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said between 60 and 70 Syrian army deserters had been killed as they abandoned their positions in the towns of Kansafra and Kafr Awid, in the restive north-western province of Idlib.

Survivors said security forces had shot them with machine-guns.

The organisation also said security forces had killed at least nine civilians on Monday - five in the southern province of Deraa, four in the Jabal al-Zawiya area of Idlib province, three near the city of Deir al-Zour, and one in the Damascus district of Midan.

The Local Co-ordination Committees, a group that organises and documents protests, put the death toll at 31, including nine in Kansafra, six in Damascus and its suburbs, six in Deraa, and five in Homs, BBC News reported.