Meeting in the Moroccan city of Marrakech as rebels battled Assad's troops on the outskirts of his Damascus power base, the "Friends of Syria" group called on Assad to step aside and warned him against using chemical weapons. At the same meeting, the leader of Syria's opposition coalition called on the Alawite minority to launch a campaign of civil disobedience against Assad, an Alawite who faces a mainly Sunni Muslim uprising against his rule. Hours earlier, President Barack Obama announced that Washington would now recognise the newly formed coalition of opposition groups as Syria's legitimate representative, joining France, Britain, Turkey and Gulf states.
"Participants acknowledge the National Coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and the umbrella organisation under which the Syrian opposition are gathering," said a draft declaration of the Marrakech meeting obtained by Reuters. The gathering brings together many Western and Arab nations
opposed to Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for 42 years. But it excludes Russia, China and Iran, which have backed Assad or blocked efforts to tighten international pressure on him. "Bashar al-Assad has lost legitimacy and should stand aside to allow a sustainable political transition," said the text. Participants announced the creation of a relief fund "to support the Syrian people", calling on states and organisations to make contributions to the fund.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague, attending the talks, said: "in the United Kingdom we do not rule out any option to save lives. The Assad regime should not doubt our resolve, or miscalculate how we would react to any use of chemical or biological weapons against the Syrian people." SANA said on Wednesday that "terrorists" detonated two bombs in the Damascus district of Jaramana, killing one person and wounded five, and another two bombs behind the Justice Ministry in Damascus, wounding one person. In central Syria an attack on a village killed or injured as many as 200 members of Assad's Alawite minority sect, activists said, but it was unclear who was behind the assault.