Blasts intensified in Syira as opposition gearing up

US President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the Syrian Opposition Council was now "inclusive enough" to be granted the elevated status, which paved the way for increasing US aid to the organization.

The US move followed similar steps taken by Britain, France and several Arab countries, which recognized the rebel council shortly after it was created at a meeting of opposition representatives in Qatar last month.

The US recognition of the council also came hours before the meeting of the so-called "Friends of Syria meeting" on Wednesday in Marrakech, Morocco, during which representatives from 114 countries and regions and 15 NGOs decided to recognize the newly formed opposition coalition as representative of the Syrians.

The "Friends of Syria" also promised more help to the exiled opposition.

After the US recognition, Syria's SANA news agency commented that Washington's recognition of the Syria opposition is a "new step that confirms the United States' hypocrisy and the double- standard policy."

SANA said Obama's remarks pose an "encroachment upon the Syrian people's right to determine its future and choose its representatives," adding that such a step would "hinder all international efforts aiming to solve the crisis in Syria through dialogue."

For his side, Haitham Mana'a, a prominent opposition leader in exile and head of the oppositional National Coordination Body (NCB), reportedly said that the Friends of Syria meeting is a mere "party for recognition and support." He said that the international group must be more serious in dealing with the Syrian opposition in all its spectra, not only those who are proponents to the West.

It worth mentioning that the US and their allies have excluded the Syrian opposition inside Syria from support.  

Rajaa al-Naser, a leading member of the NCB, told Xinhua that forming a government in exile aims to falter the efforts by the international representative to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, and to slam the political process.

He said that the armed groups on ground are not united, adding that the crisis in Syria will not end by the collapse of the al-Assad administration but will carry on if the violence continued to intensify.