Germany said Saturday it was investigating the possible breaking of an arms embargo after a report claiming that a German ship had been carrying Iranian weapons bound for Syria.

The news weekly Der Spiegel reported Saturday on its website that a German shipping company stopped one of its vessels on the high seas after a tip-off from opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Russia on Saturday said the U.N. Security Council had "practically agreed" a resolution on sending an observer mission to Syria and called on all sides to strictly obey the Kofi Annan peace plan.

"The resolution on the deployment into Syria of a U.N. monitoring mission advance group has been practically agreed for adoption at the U.N. Security Council," the Foreign Ministry said.

The U.N. Security Council will vote Saturday on a Western-drafted resolution allowing a ceasefire observer mission in Syria even though Russia's support is in doubt.

The United States called for the vote after a second day of wrangling with Russia over security guarantees for the first 30 unarmed military monitors who U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan wants in Syria early next week.

Syrian forces killed six people and shelled rebel areas of Homs on Saturday ahead of a U.N. Security Council vote on a Western-drafted resolution that would send observers to monitor a shaky truce now in its third day.

Forces loyal to President Bashar Assad killed four civilians as they opened fire at a funeral procession of a demonstrator in Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

A Bahraini 15 year-old was in intensive care on Saturday after being shot by anti-riot police while attending the funeral of a citizen journalist killed during a protest late last month, the opposition said.

Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Aziz was among several people injured during the ceremony for Ahmed Ismail, 22, the main Shiite opposition movement in the Sunni-ruled kingdom, Al-Wefaq, said.

Amnesty International on Friday called for the release of a human rights activist who has reportedly been on hunger strike in a Saudi jail for five weeks.

Mohammed bin Saleh al-Bajadi, co-founder of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), has reportedly refused to take water since last weekend, it said in a statement.

The exiled brother-in-law of ousted Tunisian strongman Zine el Abidine Ben Ali regrets his role in the dictatorship and is prepared to face justice at home, news reports said Friday, quoting an open letter.

"I have written this letter to apologize, even if I know that in the eyes of many Tunisians, if not all of them, I am unfairly considered a criminal who looted the country before fleeing abroad," wrote Belhassen Trabelsi, thought to have headed a clan that embezzled government funds.

Western nations and Russia on Friday put forward rival U.N. Security Council resolutions on sending ceasefire observers to Syria as they wrangled over conditions for the mission.

The dispute after two days of tough negotiations means no vote is likely until Saturday on any final resolution which would allow an advance party of 30 unarmed military observers to go to Syria next week.

Clashes between armed civilians and al-Qaida militants trying to retake control of the town of Loder spread on Friday to nearby Mudia, as the death toll from four days of clashes reached 200, local sources said.

At least 23 people, 20 of them suspected militants, were killed in one suburb of the southern town, tribal sources said.

Syria must allow humanitarian access to aid those in need after 13 months of deadly violence, a spokesman for international peace mediator Kofi Annan said on Friday.

"Mr. Annan is aware that we don't have a perfect situation in the country at the moment," his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said on day two of a shaky ceasefire introduced under a peace plan drawn up by Annan, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria.