The U.N. Human Rights Council ordered Friday an independent probe to hunt those guilty of the massacre in Houla, Syria, which rights chief Navi Pillay said could constitute a "crime against humanity".

Forty-one of the 47-member council backed a call urging an investigation by the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, set up by the council last year to gather evidence on alleged rights abuses there.

Germany and Russia agreed on the need for a political solution to end the bloodshed in Syria, their leaders said after talks here Friday, as Vladimir Putin warned the country could be on the brink of civil war.

The Russian president said the situation in strife-wracked Syria was "extremely dangerous" but underlined his opposition to military intervention, after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the second leg of his first foreign tour since returning to the Kremlin.

The opposition Syrian National Council on Friday accused Iran of "interference in Syrian affairs" by providing Damascus with military aid, and called for an Arab League and U.N. probe.

"Despite the Syrian regime's crimes... the Iranian regime seems determined to provide it with full military, security, economic and political support," the SNC said in a statement.

Al-Qaida announced on Friday that it had freed 27 soldiers captured in southern Yemen last month after they had "repented" and promised not to return to the army.

The Partisans of Sharia (Islamic Law), linked to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, said the soldiers had been captured in al-Kud in Abyan province, where they have seized control of many localities in the past year.

Syria and the entire region are in danger if a full-fledged conflict erupts in the country, U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay warned on Friday as she urged a probe into the Houla massacre.

In a statement to a specially-convened meeting of the Human Rights Council, Pillay also called on the international community to throw its weight behind the six-point peace plan brokered by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.

Officials in Tunisia's interior ministry said Friday they had banned a demonstration against Salafist extremism planned for this weekend, raising the prospect of fresh clashes on the streets.

Activists using the Internet had called for the protest for Saturday on the city's main thoroughfare, avenue Habib Bourguiba.

Egyptian state television will broadcast live the verdict and sentencing on Saturday of ex-president Hosni Mubarak, his sons and security chiefs in a murder and corruption trial, official media reported.

State television will charge foreign media between $7,000 and $10,000 to buy the coverage, the official MENA news agency quoted the head the of the state's Egyptian Radio and Television Union, Tharwat al-Mekki, as saying.

Syrian regime forces opened fire on protesters in the Douma area near the capital on Friday, as at least 43 people were killed in violence across the country, a rights group and activists said.

Regime forces killed 13 people in the countryside around Damascus, eight in the central province of Homs, nine in the northern city of Aleppo and its countryside, three in the central province of Hama, three in the northwestern province of Idlib, two in the coastal province of Latakia, two in the Damascus neighborhood of al-Mazzeh, two in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor and one in the southern province of Daraa, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, reported.

Germany on Friday urged Russia to curb its support for Damascus, ahead of President Vladimir Putin's visit to Berlin and Paris that is set to be dominated by the escalating Syria crisis.

"In our view Russia should recognize that we are not working against Russian strategic interests when we want to stop the violence in Syria," Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told Die Welt ahead of Putin's arrival.

An Israeli soldier and a Palestinian militant died in a shootout between the militant and troops near the border with the Gaza Strip early Friday, the military said.

The exchange of fire began after the militant crossed the fence separating the Hamas-run coastal strip and southern Israel.