MOSCOW — A Russian cargo ship carrying military helicopters and air-defense equipment for the Syria government, forced to turn back last month after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized the shipment and a British company revoked the vessel’s insurance, is again on the move.

The ship, the Alaed, which has emerged as something of a barometer of Russia’s intentions toward the government of President Bashar al-Assad, was reported heading south off Norway’s northern coast as of Thursday.

That location put the vessel close to a flotilla of four Russian naval vessels bound for the eastern Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Syria, as part of a Russian naval buildup in the area announced earlier this week, ostensibly for training exercises.

MarineTraffic.com, an Internet database that chronicles commercial shipping based on transponder signals required by the International Maritime Organization, registered the ship’s presence off the Norwegian coast on Thursday, though it had passed out of the range of the transponders in the North Atlantic by later in the day.