Russia may decide to fly a controversial military cargo of helicopters and air defense systems to Syria after it abandoned an attempt to ship the materiel by sea, a report said Wednesday.

The West wants Russia to halt all military cooperation with Syria because of the escalating conflict between the Damascus regime and rebels but Moscow has insisted it cannot break contracts.

International peace envoy Kofi Annan said on Wednesday that an action group on Syria would meet this weekend in a new bid to shore up his faltering peace plan, as both the U.S. and France said talks must focus on the need for political transition in the conflict-torn country.

The former U.N. secretary-general said a ministerial level meeting of the action group would take place in Geneva on Saturday, featuring all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and other key regional players.

Human Rights Watch on Wednesday urged Syrian authorities to end the "indiscriminate" shootings of civilians fleeing to Jordan and other neighboring countries.

"Syrian soldiers on the border with Jordan appear to be shooting indiscriminately at anyone -- including civilian women and children - trying to flee from Syria," the U.S.-based HRW said in a statement.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Turkey has no intention of attacking Syria over its recent downing of a fighter jet.

"As Turkey, the Turkish nation, we have no intention of attacking" Syria, Erdogan said during a military ceremony in Ankara.

Growing numbers of victims of the conflict in Syria are being targeted on account of their religion while gross violations of human rights are occurring on a regular basis, U.N. investigators said Wednesday.

The new report from a commission of inquiry (CoI) said that violence has actually been escalating in Syria since May despite the Assad regime's agreement to implement a peace plan the previous month.

Cyprus, which on July 1 will assume the rotating presidency of the European Union, is ready with its European partners to evacuate third party nationals from Syria, the foreign minister said.

"We are only 100 kilometer from the shores of Syria and Lebanon. Anything that goes wrong there will affect us," Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis said in an interview with Agence France Presse.

Gunmen have attacked the headquarters of a pro-government TV station, killing three employees, Syria's state-run news agency said Wednesday.

SANA said the attack on Ikhbariya TV in the town of Drousha, about 20 kilometers south of the capital Damascus, occurred early Wednesday.

Embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad said on Tuesday that his country, in the grips of an anti-regime uprising now in its 16th month, is in a "real situation of war."

"We are witnessing a real situation of war," state news agency SANA quoted him as telling a meeting of the new Syrian cabinet.

The former chief of the main opposition Syrian National Council, Burhan Ghalioun, told Agence France Presse he visited Syria for a few hours on Tuesday to "boost the morale" of rebels.

Ghalioun, a senior SNC executive board member, spoke to AFP in Beirut by telephone after his first visit to Syria in more than two years, and said he entered the country secretly and had "discussions with revolutionaries."

The United States said Tuesday that a "desperate" President Bashar Assad was slowly losing his grip on power, citing defections and fighting raging increasingly close to Damascus.

Washington offered new support to its NATO ally Turkey after Syrian forces shot down one of its fighter planes and also pushed back on Russia's insistence that Iran should take part in a planned international conference on Syria.