Major Wall Street and European financial firms are coming under pressure to dump their holdings in Lebanese debt and securities from activists who charge that Iran, Syria and Hizbullah are using Beirut's banking system to launder money and evade international sanctions, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

The campaign -- which is being led by New York-based United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) -- could threaten the Lebanese financial sector, traditionally among the Middle East's most important and vibrant, the U.S. daily said.

President Michel Suleiman denied on Wednesday claims that the Free Syrian army has set up camps in northern Lebanon.

He said: “I have not received any information on such a development, but that does not mean that the security situation in Lebanon is well.”

Syria's fractured opposition groups on Wednesday wound up talks in the Egyptian capital that descended into chaos and even fist fights as they tried to forge a common vision for a transition in their country.

More than 200 participants from 30 different movements as well as independent figures, civil society groups and activists had gathered in Cairo to form a unified front against President Bashar Assad's regime.

The bodies of the two pilots of a Turkish jet that was downed by Syria on June 22 have been recovered at the bottom of the eastern Mediterranean sea, the Turkish army said Wednesday.

"The bodies (of the two pilots) have been recovered in seabed and work is underway to bring them to surface," the army command said on a statement posted on its website.

Russia is not discussing Bashar Assad with the United States, a deputy foreign minister said Wednesday after a report said the West was pushing Moscow to offer the Syrian president exile.

"The situation with the future of Syrian President Bashar Assad is not being discussed with the United States," Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency.

The March 14 General Secretariat condemned on Wednesday Syria’s ongoing violations against Lebanon, saying that the latest one was the most dangerous due to the Syrian forces’ temporary abduction of members of the Lebanon’s General Security.

It said in a statement after its weekly meeting: “The government must file a complaint to the United Nations Security Council to condemn this violation.”

Syria's President Bashar Assad accused Turkey in an interview published Wednesday of giving logistical backing to Syrian "terrorists" and told Ankara to stop meddling in his country's affairs.

"Turkey's desire to interfere in Syria's internal affairs has put it in a position which unfortunately makes it a party to all the bloody activities" in Syria, he told the daily Cumhuriyet in an interview published Wednesday, the first part of which it published a day ago.

A Turkish fighter jet shot down by Syria last month asked for trouble when it entered Syrian airspace, the Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed Russian source as saying on Wednesday.

"The actions of the Turkish plane were no doubt a provocation. Otherwise how would you explain the fact that the fighter jet flew two, albeit short, sorties in the Syrian airspace?"

Syrian rebels and troops clashed in a Damascus suburb near a branch of the feared air force intelligence service, as monitors reported seven people killed nationwide.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported dawn clashes in Jaraman south of Damascus near a branch of the air force intelligence service, one of the most feared in Bashar Assad's regime.

Western nations led by the United States are seeking to persuade Russia to host President Bashar Assad in exile as a way out of the escalating Syria crisis, a Russian newspaper report said Wednesday.

But Moscow so far has not been receptive to the idea, even though Kremlin sources put Assad's chances of political survival at "10 percent,” the Kommersant daily said.