Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is "fast losing the last shreds of his legitimacy," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Tuesday as the regime escalated its crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

As Syrian forces raked the revolt-hit Mediterranean port city of Latakia with machine-gun fire that has already killed dozens, Hague said he was "appalled by the ongoing repression of civilians by the Syrian government".

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asked why Washington has not yet explicitly called for the Syrian president’s departure, said Thursday her country wanted such a call to come from “around the world,” not just from the White House.

“What we really need to do to put the pressure on Assad is to sanction the oil and gas industry. And we want to see Europe take more steps in that direction. And we want to see China take steps with us,” Clinton added in an interview with CBS News.

Syria's U.N. ambassador said Wednesday that anti-government groups have killed 500 Syrian security forces and sparked diplomatic fury by comparing the deadly unrest to the riots in Britain.

Britain's U.N. representative dismissed Syrian Ambassador Bashar Jaafari's "ludicrous" comparison between the handling of the worst British riots in a generation and the killing of protesters on the streets of Syrian cities. Rights groups say over 2,000 people, mainly protesters, have been killed.

Syrian forces killed at least 10 people on Thursday while the army stormed another two towns in pursuit of anti-regime protesters, defying Western calls for action after a "chilling" U.N. Security Council briefing.

The killings occurred soon after columns of tanks entered the town of Qusayr in the central province of Homs early on Thursday, sending residents fleeing into the fields, rights activist there said.

Syrian security forces shot dead 16 people in the protest hub of Homs on Wednesday, activists said.

Security forces "fired indiscriminately on residents of the Baba Amro neighborhood, killing 11 people," an activist told Agence France Presse by telephone from the central city.

The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on Syria's largest commercial bank and largest mobile phone operator, stepping up the pressure on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

The moves targeting the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria, its Lebanon-based subsidiary and telecoms company Syriatel are the latest taken by Washington against Syria over its crackdown on anti-regime protests.

Dozens of people protested Wednesday outside the Syrian embassy in Tunisia, where the Arab world uprisings began, to demand an end to the "carnage" in Syria and the departure of President Bashar al-Assad.

The demonstrators also called for Tunis to expel the Syrian ambassador.

Turkey's ambassador to Damascus visited Syrian's flashpoint protest hub of Hama, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday, as Syrian army vehicles left the town.

"Our ambassador went to Hama and said that the tanks, security forces had started to leave Hama. This is highly important to show that our initiatives had positive results," Erdogan said in televised remarks, addressing his party members in Ankara.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr on Tuesday said he feared that revolt-hit Syria was "heading to the point of no return" and called for an immediate end to violence, the official news agency MENA reported.

"Egypt is following with extreme concern the dangerous deterioration of the situation in Syria," Amr said, expressing "his concern that the situation in Syria is heading to the point of no return," MENA reported.

The head of Iran's parliament's foreign affairs committee accused the United States of seeking to destabilize Syria after talks on Tuesday in Cairo with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi.

Alaeddin Borujerdi's visit to Cairo was the first since former president Hosni Mubarak resigned in February after 18 days of massive streets protests.