Beijing on Wednesday defended the Arab League's widely criticized observer mission in Syria, as the U.N. Security Cocil struggled to agree on a resolution on Damascus' crackdown on dissent.

China, a permanent veto-wielding member of the Security Cocil, urged both sides to cooperate with the Arab League, saying the security situation in Syria had improved since it began its mission there.

The Muslim Brotherhood has rejected an Iranian proposal to play a leading role in Syria's government in exchange for President Bashar al-Assad staying in power, one of its leaders told Al-Hayat newspaper.

Iranian intermediaries proposed that the Brotherhood "lead a government (in Syria) on condition we give up our demand to replace Bashar al-Assad," the group's deputy secretary, Mohammed Farouq Tayfour, told the London-based daily.

Hosni Mubarak's doctor said the former Egyptian president is not undergoing chemotherapy for cancer but suffers from weak muscles and limited mobility, in a rare interview published Wednesday.

"We are still running tests to ascertain that he does not have this disease (cancer). It is still not 100 percent that he has it and he has not undergone any chemical treatment," oncologist Yasser Abdel Kader told the government daily al-Ahram.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday defended Russia's trade with Syria amid growing controversy over a mysterious shipment that reportedly delivered a supply of arms to Damascus.

Lavrov was asked to address criticism from Washington's U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice that followed reports that the shipment brought munitions to President Bashar Assad's forces amid their crackdown on protesters.

Russia warned Wednesday that a military strike on Iran would be a "catastrophe" with the severest consequences which risked inflaming existing tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

"As for the chances of this catastrophe happening, you would have to ask those constantly mentioning it as an option that remains on the table," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said when asked on the chances of military action.

Any decision by Israel on whether to attack Iran in a bid to halt its nuclear program remains "very far away," Defense Minister Ehud Barak told army radio on Wednesday.

"We don't have a decision to go forward with these things. We don't have a decision or a date for taking such a decision. This whole thing is very far away," he said.

The intelligence chief of Yemen's main southern city of Aden has escaped an assassination bid by unidentified gunmen, a security official said on Wednesday.

"Unknown gunmen opened fire on Aden's intelligence chief, General Ghazi Ahmed Ali, as he was returning from work late on Tuesday, wounding two of his companions" who were hospitalized, the official said.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday decried continued and "unacceptable" levels of violence in Syria and pledged to redouble international efforts to force President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

Obama also thanked King Abdullah II of Jordan in the Oval Office for being the first Arab leader to call for Assad to go, after talks that also focused on Jordanian efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

France and Germany said Tuesday that a new Russian draft resolution at the U.N. Security Council on the Syrian crisis was inadequate, as Britain said it was unlikely Russia would let the U.N. body take any serious action.

It was "very far from responding to the reality of the situation in Syria", where President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on protests has left thousands of people dead, French foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said.

Prominent opposition figure and rights activist Najati Tayyara, arrested last May for having criticized President Bashar al-Assad's regime, was released on Tuesday, a rights group said.

"The Syrian authorities have just released him and his lawyer has just spoken to him on the telephone," said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.