Turkish officials on Thursday began searching a German-owned vessel suspected of carrying weapons to Syria, a diplomatic source told Agence France Presse.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday accused Syria's Bashar Assad of seeking to "wipe Homs from the map", comparing his campaign to the Libyan regime's attacks on the city of Benghazi.

"Bashar Assad is lying in a shameful way, he wants to wipe Homs from the map like (former Libyan strongman Moammsr) Gadhafi wanted to wipe Benghazi from the map," Sarkozy told Europe 1 radio.

Syrian troops killed a civilian and three civilians were also wounded on Thursday a week into a U.N.-backed truce, a Britain-based human rights watchdog said.

Syrian security forces opened fire in the northeastern oil city of Deir al-Zour before clashes erupted between troops and rebel fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.

A wave of apparently coordinated bombing and shooting attacks in six different provinces across Iraq killed at least 37 people and wounded more than 150 on Thursday, security officials said.

It was the deadliest day in Iraq since March 20, when shootings and bombings claimed by al-Qaida front group the Islamic State of Iraq killed 50 people and wounded 255 nationwide.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has called for an expanded U.N. ceasefire observation mission in Syria even though he says Damascus has failed to adhere to an agreed peace plan.

The U.N. leader said Wednesday he wants 300 unarmed observers to be sent on a three-month mission, in a report to the U.N. Security Council that also said it was "critical" for President Bashar Assad to carry out his commitments.

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Wednesday on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to send tanks back into barracks to prove that it is fully implementing an international peace plan.

"Unless tanks go back into barracks, we cannot say the six-point peace plan is being implemented," Erdogan said at a press conference televised by private NTV news channel.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of tougher measures if he squanders his "last chance" by failing to implement a U.N.-Arab peace plan.

During a visit to Brussels, Clinton appeared increasingly concerned over whether a fragile six-day truce will hold and offered Assad a stark choice over whether he pursues peace or resumes crushing a pro-democracy movement.

The powerful Muslim Brotherhood's Khairat al-Shater, barred from Egypt's first post-Arab Spring presidential election, accused the country's military rulers on Wednesday of seeking to stay in power and promised an anti-government protest.

He spoke after the electoral commission confirmed that 10 candidates had been barred from standing, rejecting challenges by him and another Islamist and the old regime's spy chief.

Seif al-Islam will face justice whether he is tried in The Hague or in Libya, International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said on Wednesday, insisting the decision lies with the ICC.

Libyan officials, however, remain adamant that he be tried in his country.

Egypt's grand mufti visited Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque on Wednesday, a senior Muslim official said, despite claims by an internationally prominent cleric that such visits are a sop to Israel.

Azzam al-Khatib said Ali Gomaa, Egypt's highest religious authority, "came for a religious visit to Al-Aqsa mosque" along with Jordan's Prince Ghazi bin Mohammed, King Abdullah II's cousin and advisor on religious issues.