The United States is working to avoid the "total destruction" of Syria, and plans a meeting in the coming days with Russian, Saudi and Turkish leaders to seek an end to the conflict, Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday.

"I will be coming back in a few days and I will meet with leaders of Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to work through... options that could perhaps reignite the political process and bring about a political transition in Syria," he said on a stop in Madrid.

A group of 84 bishops have written to Prime Minister David Cameron urging him to allow more Syrian refugees to settle in Britain, a letter published Saturday showed.

The call comes days after 300 senior lawyers, former law lords and retired judges described Cameron's offer to take 20,000 Syrian refugees over five years as "too low, too slow and too narrow".

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday that Russia is fighting for its national interests in Syria, not for President Bashar Assad.

"Of course we are not fighting for specific leaders, we are defending our national interests, on the one hand," Medvedev said in an interview to air on state television.

The U.S. military on Friday denied claims that Syrian Kurdish forces had snagged ammunition from a massive air drop that was intended for Syrian Arabs fighting Islamic State jihadists.

The issue is sensitive for the Pentagon, which fears souring relations with Ankara and jeopardizing the use of a base at Incirlik in southern Turkey to conduct air raids against IS.

Turkish fighter jets shot down an unidentified drone which entered its air space near the Syrian border, with the U.S. military saying "all indications" showed that the unmanned vehicle was Russian.

If confirmed, the presence of a Russian craft in the air space of the key NATO member would further ratchet up tensions over Moscow's behavior in Syria. Russia denied it was to blame, despite repeated previous violations.

For the Syrian refugee family, one reprieve from crushing boredom in the asylum center is short walks to a lake. But in a town teeming with neo-Nazis, the excursions can bring more distress than relief: A man recently stormed out of a coffee shop and screamed at two women of the Habashieh family to take off their hijabs "because we're in Europe!" Another time, people inside a car yelled: "Auslaender raus!!" — Foreigners out!!

Fear and frustration, however, have been tempered by kindness. A volunteer from nearby Dresden has befriended the Habashiehs, who fled Syria's civil war and are now living in a temporary facility in the eastern town of Heidenau after arriving in Germany last month, following a perilous journey from Damascus.

Syrian government forces backed by Russian airpower and allied militias opened a new front against rebel fighters south of second city Aleppo on Friday.

The fresh offensive came as Turkey said it had downed an "air vehicle" of unknown origin that violated its air space close to the Syrian border.

Russia's military intervention in Syria will not save President Bashar Assad, French President Francois Hollande said Friday after an EU summit called for a political transition to a new leader.

"It is very clearly stated that Bashar cannot be the future. We must go as fast as possible to a political transition," Hollande told a press conference after the summit in Brussels.

The U.S. military is poised to boost its supply runs to rebels fighting Islamic State jihadists in northern Syria, a U.S. official said Thursday, days after an initial air drop of ammunition.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official told AFP the Pentagon is ready to augment ammunition deliveries with weapons, provided rebels on the ground can prove they are fighting IS.

Russia said Thursday that its jets hit 32 "terrorist" targets in Syria over the past 24 hours, claiming it had eased up its air strikes as allied government forces pushed a ground offensive. 

"The intensity of the sorties by our military aviation has slightly decreased in the past day," Russia's defense ministry said in a statement.