The US closed its Syrian embassy and Britain recalled its ambassador to Damascus in a dramatic escalation of Western pressure on President Bashar Assad to give up power, just days after diplomatic efforts at the United Nations to end the crisis collapsed.

SYRIAN forces killed 111 people ahead of the start of a mission to monitor President Bashar al-Assad’s implementation of an Arab League peace plan, activists claimed.

Syrian troops have been accused of massacring an entire village with rockets, machine guns and tanks.

Syrian troops have targeted forces opposed to President Bashar Assad in clashes that have left seven soldiers and policemen dead, a military official said.