Gunmen attacked a police checkpoint in Iraq's western desert, close to the Syrian and Jordanian borders, killing five policemen early on Tuesday, security and medical officials said.

The attack took place soon after midnight about 500 kilometers west of Baghdad in mostly Sunni Anbar province, according to a police officer in Ramadi, the provincial capital.

Iran on Tuesday denied an allegation from France that it was sending weapons to its ally Syria in violation of a U.N. embargo.

"The declarations from French officials are incorrect," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters in a regular weekly briefing.

Yemen's foreign minister has warned that insecurity resulting from months of mass protests and political unrest could delay presidential elections planned for next month.

"If we don't deal with the security challenges ... it might be difficult to hold elections (as scheduled) on February 21," Abu Bakr al-Qurbi said in an interview with al-Arabiya television Tuesday.

The United Nations said Monday that it would start training Arab League observers monitoring the deadly crackdown in Syria within days.

A formal request for help has been made by the Arab League and the U.N. has agreed to start the training in Cairo after League foreign ministers meet this weekend, a U.N. spokeswoman, Vannina Maestracci, told Agence France Presse.

The Free Syrian Army on Monday urged the Arab League to let the U.N. handle the crisis in Syria, accusing President Bashar al-Assad's regime of pressing on with a crackdown despite an Arab plan to end the unrest.

Russia on Monday distributed a new draft resolution on the Syrian crisis at the U.N. Security Council after facing weeks of criticism over the slow pace of talks, diplomats said.

Western diplomats said however there is no apparent change in the Russian position opposing any strong U.N. action against President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on protests which has left thousands dead.

A leading MP and an opposition figure who heads Syria's largest tribe announced they have defected and gone into exile, in interviews broadcast on Monday on Al-Arabiya television.

"I have come to Turkey to activate the opposition. The Syrian revolution is our path. The country's youth are making the greatest sacrifices for a better future," Al-Baqqara tribal chief Nawaf al-Bashir told the satellite channel.

Syrian activists will make a fresh attempt at entering from Turkey with medical aid for the uprising's March 15 anniversary, organizers said Monday, after their "Freedom Convoy" was turned away last week.

"The Freedom Convoy will reconvene in Gaziantep (in Turkey's southeast) on March 15 because it is the day when the popular revolt began against the regime of (President Bashar al-) Assad," Moayad Skaf, the group's spokesperson, was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency on Monday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's media advisor, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, has been found guilty by a Tehran court of insulting supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but on Monday fought back against the charge.

"My adherence to the sage supreme leader is more apparent than the sun, and is backed by my record," Javanfekr wrote on his personal website, Javanfekr.ir.

Syrian security forces on Monday killed at least 13 people across the country, among them five army deserters, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

Eight people were killed in the flashpoint central province of Homs while five others were killed in the northwestern province of Idlib, the LCC said.