The United States and its international partners called yesterday for global sanctions against Bashar Assad's regime, seeking to step up the pressure after the defection of a top general dealt a blow to the Syrian leader.

"General Munaf Tlass defected three days ago," a source close to the Syrian government said on condition of anonymity.

Tlass, the highest-ranking military officer to have abandoned the Assad regime, was on his way to Paris to join his wife and sister, Nahed Ojjeh, widow of Saudi millionaire arms dealer Akram Ojjeh, said the source.

Tlass, who is in his late 40s, was a member of the inner circle in Syria, and a childhood friend of Bashar al-Assad.

A general in the elite Republican Guard charged with protecting the regime, he is the son of former defence minister Mustafa Tlass, a close friend of Assad's late father

and predecessor, Hafez.

His defection comes two weeks after a colonel in the privileged Syrian air force won political asylum after landing his MiG-21 fighter in neighbouringjordan.

The "Friends of Syria" meeting insisted that Assad would have to quit and sought a resolution under the UN charter's Chapter 7, which provides for possible sanctions and military action.

Some 100 nations and organisations meeting in Paris called on the UN Security Council to adopt a transition plan for Syria backed by economic sanctions if the regime refuses to comply.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also issued a clarion call for all nations to do more to push for political change in Syria and end the 16-month conflict, while lambasting Russia and China for "blockading" progress.

Washington urged countries around the world to pressure Russia and China into forcing Assad to leave power.

But it stressed that the immediate action under Article 41 provided only for non-military intervention.

French President Francois Hollande also pushed for the Security Council to get tough with Damascus, while the Syrian opposition called for humanitarian corridors and a no-fly zone.

On the ground, Dozens of people

were killed across Syria yesterday as protesters took to the streets to caU for a" people's liberation war".

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 53 people were killed on Friday: 35 civilians, 14 soldiers and four rebels. On Thursday at least 95 people were killed in raging violence.