U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that Washington will push for a U.N. Security Council vote on Syria later Saturday, a U.S. official said.

However, it was not clear what if any progress Clinton had made in bridging differences with Foreign Minister Lavrov over the terms of an amended Arab- and Western-backed draft resolution in New York.

The Arab League's parliaments chief called on member states to expel pro-regime Syrian ambassadors, saying that President Bashar Assad's government is continuing to kill Syrian protesters.

Ali Salem al-Diqbassi, the 88-member advisory body's speaker, said that Arab League countries should carry out a decision to cut diplomatic and economic ties with Syria as Assad faces down pro-democracy protests with violence.

Iranian naval ships docked on Saturday in the Saudi port city of Jeddah on a mission to project the Islamic republic's "power on the open seas," the Fars news agency reported.

The supply ship Kharg and Shaid Qandi, a destroyer, docked in the Red Sea port in line with orders from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, it quoted navy commander Admiral Habibollah Sayari as saying.

Syrian forces bombarded the protest city of Homs Saturday, killing more than 200 civilians in a "horrific massacre," activists said, as the army opened fire on funeral processions near Damascus, killing 12 people.

The Damascus government denied involvement in the pre-dawn assault, blaming groups trying to incite unrest ahead of a possible Security Council vote, as television images showed bodies and buildings destroyed in the city.

Russia said Saturday that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit Damascus on Tuesday along with the foreign intelligence service chief for talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"On the order of the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Sergei Lavrov and Mikhail Fradkov will visit Damascus on February 7 for a meeting with Bashar Assad," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Tunisia will expel the Syrian ambassador and stop recognizing the Damascus regime as government after a violent repression that killed over 200 people in the central city of Homs, the presidency said.

"Tunisia has begun formal procedures to expel the Syrian ambassador and to end all recognition of the regime in power in Syria," said the presidency in a statement.

Police fired tear gas and birdshot at protesters on Saturday in the third day of deadly clashes in Cairo, as anger at the ruling military boiled over after 74 people died in football-related violence.

The police responded after dozens of protesters threw stones at officers guarding the interior ministry headquarters hundreds of meters (yards) from the Egyptian capital's iconic Tahrir Square.

Kuwaiti authorities arrested several people when hundreds of angry Syrians and local activists stormed the Syrian embassy in the Gulf state on Saturday, the interior ministry said.

"A group of Syrian expats stormed the Syrian embassy in Kuwait, removed the flag and destroyed utilities," the ministry said in a statement.

Armed clashes between supporters and opponents of a presidential election in Yemen left dozens of people wounded in the main southern city of Aden, activists from both sides said on Saturday.

The violence erupted late Friday when supporters of the Southern Movement, a separatist group, attacked a march organized by rivals from a year-old protest movement against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, one activist said.

Syria's government denied on Saturday that its army bombarded the central city of Homs, instead blaming the bloodshed on "armed gunmen," state media reported.

The government "denies shelling by the army in certain districts of Homs, as peddled by television stations that are inciting" violence," the official SANA news agency said, after rights groups reported that at least 260 civilians were killed in the assault on the protest hub.