Assad’s Syria regime ‘on last legs’

The new head of Syria’s main opposition group has called for mass defections from a regime struggling to survive by carrying out massacres, as the death toll in the uprising topped 14,000.

Similar calls were made by the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), which also urged a campaign of mass “civil disobedience” to ratchet up internal pressure on President Bashar al-Assad’s beleaguered regime.

The opposition’s new leader said Assad’s regime was on its “last legs”, even as Russia warned it would block any move at the UN to use force against its ally.