Gunmen killed nine people, including seven members of the security forces, on Saturday in separate attacks on checkpoints in north Iraq, security and medical officials said.

In the deadliest shooting, five members of the security forces died when gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint in the Turkmen town of Rashidiyah, northeast of the main northern city of Mosul, an army captain said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Libyan authorities should take immediate steps to assume custody of thousands of detainees still held by militias, a rights watchdog said on Saturday, after a deadline for a handover passed.

"Despite months of cajoling the militias, the transitional authorities missed the deadline and failed to gain control over approximately 5,000 people still held arbitrarily by armed groups, some subjected to severe torture," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

A gunman was killed during an attack on a police station as four Saudi policemen were wounded in a separate assault on their patrols in the kingdom's Shiite-populated east, state media reported.

"Four masked gunmen on motorbikes entered al-Awamiya police center where one of them threw a petrol bomb while the rest opened fire at the station," interior ministry spokesman Mansur al-Turki said, quoted by SPA news agency.

Iran is ready to play a role alongside other regional countries to try to establish a dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition, an official was quoted as saying on Saturday.

"Iran is ready to play an appropriate role in bringing stability and security in Syria" to prevent the crisis "quickly spreading to the whole region," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told the Iran newspaper.

Hundreds of soldiers backed by helicopter gunships attacked a town in southern Syria on Saturday, as at least 28 people were killed across the country, reports said.

"Tanks and hundreds of soldiers stormed Khirbet Ghazaleh amid heavy gunfire" following helicopter bombing raids, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, without providing any casualty figures.

French President Francois Hollande on Friday called on Russia and China not to oppose U.N. sanctions against Syria following the latest massacre which rebels blame on regime troops.

"I say to the Russians, the Chinese: doing nothing to advance us toward stronger sanctions will only result in chaos and war in Syria at the expense of (your) own interests," he said, speaking on BFM television.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that the Syrian government had "flouted" U.N. resolutions with the latest mass killings in the country.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon also told the council that the killings in the village of Treimsa were an "outrageous escalation" of the conflict.

Russia on Friday condemned the latest reported massacre in Syria as a "bloody atrocity" which it blamed on forces that want to foment inter-ethnic conflict and civil war.

The Russian foreign ministry said it believed between 50 and 100 people were killed Thursday in the central village of Treimsa in an attack the rebels and the government of President Bashar Assad have both blamed on each other.

The head of Tunisia's ruling Islamist Ennahda told Agence France Presse on Friday his party's first congress would consider a government reshuffle and enlarging the government coalition.

"We are evaluating the performance of the government that has been in place for the past six months for information that could lead to a change of ministers or portfolios, even enlarging the coalition to include other parties," Rached Ghannouchi said on day two of the Ennahda party conference.

President Moncef Marzouki stressed Tunisia does not face the threat of Islamic extremism and is run by a partnership which includes center-leftist parties, in an interview with Agence France Presse.

Marzouki, who on July 17-19 visits France, where he previously lived in exile, said his mission was aimed at erasing tensions that arose during the 2011 revolution that swept away president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's regime.