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.

Turkey summoned Iraq's ambassador to Ankara to protest claims that it has been meddling in its neighbor’s affairs by voicing concerns about a domestic political crisis, a diplomatic source said Tuesday.

Feridun Sinirlioglu, the foreign ministry's undersecretary, told the Iraqi envoy Monday that the accusation of interference was "unacceptable" and Turkey had a legitimate right to be concerned about events on the other side of its borders.

A Kuwaiti court on Tuesday sentenced two police officers to life in prison and handed three others 16-year jail terms for torturing a man to death last year.

The criminal court also issued prison sentences to another two other officers, one to 15 years in jail and another for two years.

Syria's government on Tuesday rejected the possibility of the Arab League deploying troops in the unrest-swept country as suggested by the emir of Qatar and said its people would confront such action.

"Syria rejects the statements of officials of Qatar on sending Arab troops to worsen the crisis... and pave the way for foreign intervention," the foreign ministry said in a statement.