BEIJING / CAIRO - The Arab League approved by a majority vote on Sunday sweeping economic sanctions on Syria over its alleged crackdown on protesters and the Qatari foreign minister said that sanctions will go into force straight away.

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani has previously said Arabs wanted to avoid a repeat of what happened in Libya, where UN Security Council resolution led to NATO air strikes.

"All the work that we are doing is to avoid this interference," he said, adding that if the international community did not see that Arabs were "serious" he could not guarantee that such action would be avoided.