Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon head for Russia and China on Monday to press the two U.N. Security Council doubters to back tougher action against President Bashar Assad to halt the slaughter in Syria.

The visits by the U.N.-Arab League envoy and the U.N. leader come at a crucial new stage in the 16-month old conflict. The Security Council has until Friday to renew the U.N. mission in Syria but is divided over Western calls to add sanctions.

The United Arab Emirates said on Sunday it has dismantled a group plotting against state security without identifying their affiliation or the number of arrests.

The prosecutor general, Salem Said Kabish, said an unspecified number of people were being questioned for having formed "a group aimed at damaging the security of the state," the official news agency WAM reported.

A Russian ship that tried to supply attack helicopters to Syria last month before being forced back was Sunday sighted sailing back home after unexpectedly starting a new voyage.

The privately-chartered Alaed had to return to Russia after its initial attempt to deliver the controversial cargo to President Bashar Assad's regime in June was exposed by the U.S. State Department.

A retired Palestinian security officer died on Sunday of injuries sustained after falling from a window while in Palestinian custody, security sources told Agence France Presse.

Osama Aql Mansour, 49, was pronounced dead at a Ramallah hospital, where he was transported suffering serious injuries. His brother told AFP he believed Mansur had been murdered.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called Sunday for the U.S. to speed up the transfer of weapons to Iraq, which lacks the ability to defend its airspace or borders, six months after American troops withdrew.

The Iraqi premier also pointedly said during a meeting with General James Mattis, the visiting head of U.S. Central Command, that only the central government would decide which arms purchases would be made, in an apparent swipe at Kurdish complaints over the acquisition of F-16 warplanes.

Gun and bomb attacks north of Baghdad killed three people, including a young girl, and left 10 others wounded on Sunday, security and medical officials said.

In the restive ethnically-mixed province of Diyala, a spate of shootings and explosions killed two, among them the five-year-old child.

Turkey must stop accepting "illegal" transfers of crude oil from the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq or risk damaging bilateral ties, government spokesman Ali Dabbagh warned on Sunday.

His remarks were the latest sign of cooling ties between Ankara and Baghdad, as well as between the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region over oil exports.

Petrol bombs were thrown during the night by unknown attackers at a parking lot of a Saudi Arabian court in the kingdom's unrest-hit Shiite-populated east, an official and witnesses said on Sunday.

They said the bombs were thrown in the parking lot outside the compound of the court in Qatif district, setting the plastic shades that covered the area on fire.

Egypt's Health Ministry said Sunday that rescue services had retrieved 10 bodies from under the rubble of an 11-storey building that collapsed a day earlier in the coastal city of Alexandria.

"Ten bodies have been found under the rubble of the collapsed building in Alexandria," the Health Ministry said, adding that the search for survivors was continuing. Five people were found alive on Sunday, it said.

Iran, the main regional ally of Syria, said on Sunday it is ready to host a meeting between Damascus and its opponents aimed at solving the country's conflict.

"Iran is ready to host the Syrian opposition for dialogue with the Syrian government," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told Arabic-language Al-Alam television.