U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan warned on Wednesday it would be "disastrous" if rebels fighting the Syrian regime were to be armed, as proposed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

"I've always said the militarization of the conflict will be disastrous," Annan told a news conference in Tehran during a visit to Iran, Syria's chief ally in the Middle East.

Syrian forces shelled the flashpoint city of Homs on Wednesday and raided other parts of the country, killing eight civilians as they pressed their assaults on protest hubs, monitors said.

The attacks occurred a day after a U.N.-Arab League peace plan was scheduled to enter into effect, but envoy Kofi Annan said Wednesday there was still a chance to salvage his bid to end hostilities within another 24 hours.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati is seeking to maintain stability in Lebanon by disassociating the country from the crisis in Syria.

Sources close to Miqati told An Nahar newspaper that the premier and his cabinet don’t accept any violation of freedoms especially those of journalists.

Syria has informed Lebanese authorities that it holds onto its announcement that “terrorist groups” were responsible for the killing of a Lebanese cameraman in the northern area of Wadi Khaled.

An Nahar daily said Wednesday that coordination between Lebanon and Syria was underway through the joint security and military committee.

Two Lebanese army recruits have escaped the military service and joined the ranks of the rebel Free Syrian Army to fight President Bashar Assad’s regime, As Safir newspaper reported on Wednesday.

An informed source told the daily that the military service of the two recruits, who hail from the Wadi Khaled border region of Akkar, was extended but after they were granted their leave of absence “they left and never came back.”

Shots fired by Syrian forces early Wednesday hit a Syrian refugee camp just across the border with Turkey, Turkish media reported.

News channel CNN-Turk showed images of automatic rifle fire towards Turkish territory from a border surveillance building flying the Syrian flag near Kilis in southeastern Turkey.

Lebanon can file a complaint with the U.N. Security Council against Syria over the killing of Lebanese cameramen Ali Shaaban, diplomatic sources said Wednesday.

The sources told al-Mustaqbal daily however that the problem lies in the lack of a political decision to file such a complaint.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday she would tell Russia that the risk of civil war was rising in Syria, adding that she expected "rough" diplomacy ahead.

Clinton said she would raise the Syria crisis when she meets Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in talks among foreign ministers of the Group of Eight major economies starting in Washington on Wednesday.

The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday called on President Bashar al-Assad to keep a Thursday deadline for a complete ceasefire in the Syria conflict.

In a statement read by U.S. ambassador Susan Rice, the council backed a demand by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan for the Syrian government to make a "fundamental change of course" to end hostilities by 6:00 am Damascus time on Thursday.

Ninety people including 66 civilians were killed across Syria on Tuesday, the day the government was expected to pull its forces from protest hubs under a U.N.-Arab League peace plan, monitors said.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces killed 30 people in Homs, nine in Idlib, 22 in Hama, five in Daraa, two in Aleppo, one in the Damascus suburb of Harasta and one in Deir al-Zour.