DAMASCUS/AMMAN: President Bashar Assad named a new defense minister Monday as he pressed on with a crackdown on dissent that has prompted an extraordinary warning from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
King Abdullah broke Arab silence late Sunday after the bloodiest week of the almost five-month uprising for more political freedoms in Syria, demanding an end to the bloodshed and recalling the Saudi ambassador from Damascus.

The Saudi criticism was the sharpest the oil giant has directed against any fellow Arab state since pro-democracy uprisings began to sweep across the Middle East in January, toppling autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt, kindling civil war in Libya and rattling entrenched elites throughout the region.
Announcing the recall of his ambassador from Syria, the Saudi king urged Damascus to “stop the killing machine and the bloodshed … before it is too late” and called for “comprehensive and quick reforms.”

“The future of Syria lies between two options: Either Syria chooses willingly to resort to reason, or faces being swept into deep chaos, God forbid,” the king warned.
In hours following, fellow Gulf Cooperation Council states Kuwait and Bahrain also recalled their envoys from Damascus. “The military option must be halted,” Kuwait’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Sabah told reporters.

The U.S. reaction was that it was “encouraged, heartened” by a tougher stand from Arab countries.
“We are very much encouraged, heartened by the strong statements that we’ve seen over the weekend by the Arab League as well as by the Gulf Cooperation Council,” U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said.

Al-Azhar, the Cairo-based top Sunni authority, also piled the pressure on the Assad government, terming the crackdown a “tragedy” that “has gone too far.”
Al-Azhar “asks Syrian leaders to work immediately to end the bloodshed and to respond favourably to the legitimate demands of the Syrian masses,” said the grand imam, Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayeb.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi urged Syria to launch a “serious dialogue” with protesters who have rallied almost daily since mid-March, urging democratic reforms in a country ruled by Assad’s Baath party for nearly 50 years.
“When people take to the streets … and seek change, presidents and governments must reach that solution through dialogue without making use of violence or force,” Arabi told reporters.

Syrian State television Monday said Assad signed a decree naming General Daoud Rajha, 64, the former army chief, to replace General Ali Habib as defense minister.
Assad was in line with decisions taken after meetings with residents of protest hubs to make changes in top state posts, it said.

The announcements came as rights activists said security forces shot dead at least eight people including a mother and her two children in the city of Deir al-Zour, where 42 people were reported killed in an army assault Sunday.
The Syrian authorities repression of Syria’s pro-democracy uprising has left at least 2,059 people dead, including almost 400 members of the security forces, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Observatory reported Monday that seven people were killed, including the mother and her two children shot dead as they were fleeing a military assault on Deir al-Zour.

Later, a sniper shot dead an 18-year-old woman in the city, the largest in eastern Syria, and an elderly woman was killed in the Al-Jura district, the Observatory said, quoting local residents.
It also reported that security forces shot dead three people in the southern protest hub of Deraa as they took part in a funeral procession of a man who had died Sunday.

It identified one of the victims as Maan Awadat, brother of prominent dissident Haitham Manaa. “He was hit in the head, it was an assassination,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory.
Witnesses and activists Monday reported that tanks and troops entering Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province bordering Turkey and carrying out “a large number of arrests,” while tanks also deployed and encircled the town of Sarakeb.

The website of Syria’s Defense Ministry was offline after being defaced by the Internet vigilante “hacktivist” group Anonymous to protest the crackdown on protesters.

Assad Sunday defended the actions of his security forces saying they were confronting “outlaws” while SANA news agency quoted an official military source as denying charges that tanks were shelling Deir al-Zour. The European Union is mulling new sanctions against individuals and business linked to the clampdown, EU diplomats said Monday, as Germany warned that Assad would lose legitimacy if his regime kept up the deadly crackdown.

Assad’s replacement of the defense minister is his latest in a series of measure since protests broke out in mid-March.
He ordered a new government in April after the former prime minister quit and has sacked several governors, including those of the flashpoint provinces of Hama, Homs and Deir al-Zour.

Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, Saturday, said “free and transparent” elections to a new parliament would be held by the end of 2011 and that the regime was committed to reform announced by Assad.