BEIRUT, Lebanon — A day after President Bashar al-Assad said Syria was living in a “state of war,” rebels operating with increasing audacity around the capital were reported by the country’s official media on Wednesday to have stormed into a pro-government television station, killed several employees and planted explosives that destroyed studios.

The assault came as a United Nations panel investigating human rights in Syria accused government forces on Wednesday of committing violations on “an alarming scale” in recent months, but also found that both sides in the conflict had carried out summary executions.
“Gross human rights violations are occurring regularly in the context of increasingly militarized fighting,” Paulo Pinheiro, the Brazilian chairman of the panel, told the United Nations Human Right Council in Geneva.
The latest attack followed a surprise assault on Tuesday by Syrian insurgents on a Republican Guard base in the capital, Damascus, just a few miles from the presidential palace, provoking a furious military response, with government forces shelling surrounding neighborhoods. The escalation brought combat in the Syrian conflict close to the heart of the capital.
The violence spilled into Wednesday when, before dawn, attackers at the al-Ikhbaria satellite broadcaster “planted explosive devices in the headquarters of al-Ikhbaria following their ransacking and destroying of the satellite channel studios, including the newsroom studio which was entirely destroyed,” the official Syrian news agency SANA reported.
The news agency referred to the assailants as terrorists — the usual official language to denote armed opponents Mr. Assad’s government. While initial reports from SANA said three employees were killed, a subsequent official estimate put the death toll at seven.
The station, privately-owned but strongly supportive of the government, is in the town of Drousha, around 14 miles south of Damascus. News reports quoted an unidentified employee at the station as broadly confirming the SANA account.
The Associated Press quoted one of its photographers who visited the compound as saying five portable buildings used for offices and studios had collapsed, with blood on the floor and wooden partitions still on fire. Some walls had bullet holes, the photographer said.
But hours later, The A.P. said, the station was able to broadcast a rally in Damascus’s main square against the attack on its premises.
The assault reflected the information war between Mr. Assad’s government and its adversaries. SANA described the satellite channel as “an active Syrian media means” to combat what it called “a sinister campaign” by Arab and Western media to “spread false, virtual and biased news.”
Western reporters are not generally given free access to cover the Syrian conflict and the government’s opponents have proven adept at offering their narrative of the 16-month uprising through video clips showing the fighting between government and opposition and its bloody aftermath.
On its Web site, SANA showed photographs of what it said were wrecked studios at al-Ikhbaria and quoted Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi as saying the attackers perpetrated “the worst massacre against journalism and the freedom of media when they executed the Syria media figures in cold blood.”
The attack came a day after gunmen in Lebanon erected roadblocks, burned tires and fired into the air in downtown Beirut. The roadblocks were manned by Shiites who apparently support Mr. Assad and who were angry over the arrest of a Shiite man suspected of firebombing and shooting into the offices of New TV, a Lebanese broadcaster that had criticized the Syrian government.
The incidents aroused renewed concern that Lebanon’s sectarian factions would again be dragged into the conflicts of its neighbor.
In the fighting on Tuesday, antigovernment activists estimated that at least 33 people were killed in the artillery barrages on the Damascus suburb of Qudssaya aimed at the Free Syrian Army insurgents, less than three miles northwest of President Assad’s official residence, and on Barzeh in northern Damascus, about three miles northeast.
Mr. Assad, in remarks to his cabinet reported by the official SANA news agency, did not explicitly acknowledge the proximity of the fighting, but said “we live in a state of war.” As such, he said, “all our policies, directives and all sectors will be directed in order to gain victory in this war.” Previously, he had characterized the 16-month-old uprising as a crime wave by foreign-backed terrorists.
In an apparently unrelated development, a Syrian Air Force lieutenant general was kidnapped by armed men from his home in Damascus, according to Syrian State Television, who identified him as Lt. Gen. Farage Shihada al-Maqat. He was abducted in the Adawi neighborhood of Damascus, an exclusive area where dignitaries and Russian advisers live. If the report is true, General Maqat would be the highest-ranking officer to be kidnapped or killed since the uprising began. More than 13 generals are among a wave of high-ranking officers who have defected to the opposition recently.
The developments came as the United Nations Security Council met in attempts to devise a new strategy on Syria, where diplomacy has repeatedly failed, and as Turkey, a supporter of the Free Syrian Army and other groups fighting to overthrow Mr. Assad, issued a new warning to Syria after the disputed downing of a Turkish warplane by Syria last Friday. Bolstered by unanimous support from Turkey’s NATO allies, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Syrian forces should avoid their shared border.
The assault in Damascus on the Republican Guard base began on Monday night and was intended as only a probing attack, according to a lieutenant of the Free Syrian Army whose unit carried it out and who was interviewed by Skype.
“It was not a big confrontation, it was just to test the Guards’ capacity, for future attacks,” said the lieutenant, who for security reasons asked to be identified only by his rank. “Our fighters were really surprised by the huge forces that immediately came and encircled the area.”
As he put it, the incident proved that “one bullet in Damascus has more impact than a tank barrage in Idlib or Homs, because the regime doesn’t hear the bombings but for sure they hear the bullet in Damascus.”
Only 20 fighters with light weapons were involved, he said. “It was just a test for when the battle does move to Damascus.”
The elite Republican Guard has about 8,000 soldiers and is devoted to the protection of Mr. Assad and his subordinates. The guard has also taken the lead in suppressing dissent in the capital area.
Other opposition sources reported an escalation of the fighting in Damascus, mainly from government shelling focused on the neighborhoods or suburbs of Qudssaya, Dummar and Al Hameh, all to the northeast of the Republican Guard base, which in turn adjoins the presidential palace.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad group in Britain with a contact network in Syria, reported that 10 people were killed in Qudssaya. The Local Coordination Committees, an anti-Assad group in Syria that has been documenting casualties in the conflict, reported 33 killed in Qudssaya, Al Hameh and Dummar, as well as 2 killed in the capital. The group also released a list of people it said were among 21 massacred by Syrian forces in Al Hameh.
The shelling early Tuesday was intense enough to be heard throughout the capital, according to Noor Bitar, who identified himself as the media coordinator for the Damascus branch of the Revolutionary Council Leadership, another anti-Assad group.
The fighting was confirmed in part by the official SANA news agency, which reported that “authorities clashed on Tuesday with armed terrorist groups in Al Hameh town in the Damascus countryside.” The SANA report said the armed groups had blocked the old Beirut highway and officials had killed “tens of terrorists.”
A woman who identified herself as Serene and who lives in the Mezze market area of Damascus, about three miles from the area of the heaviest shelling, said residents were awakened at 4 a.m. by the bombardment. “Everyone was up sending text messages wondering what was happening,” she said, speaking by Skype. “We’re used to car bombs, but this was shelling explosions. The circle is getting tighter.”
Abu Rami, who lives in Qudssaya with his wife and two children, said people had been unable to go to work because of heavy shooting and bombardment. “The Free Syrian Army wants to move the battle to Damascus,” he said. “We feel we live under a real war now, not just skirmishes here and there.”
Rod Nordland and Hwaida Saad reported from Beirut and Alan Cowell from London. Dalal Mawad contributed reporting from Beirut; an employee of The New York Times from Damascus, Syria; Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva; and Rick Gladstone from New York.