Assad must step down, Washington says

Agence France-Presse

A top Kurdish activist and 16 other people were killed in Syria on Friday as thousands rallied in support of a new opposition front, activists said, and Washington called for President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

Kurdish activist and opposition spokesman Meshaal Tamo, 53, was killed when four masked gunmen stormed his house in Qamishli in the north and opened fire, also wounding his son and another fellow activist in the Kurdish Future Party, activists said.

The White House called on Assad to "step down now," warning he was taking his country down a "very dangerous path."

In a statement, spokesman Jay Carney condemned Tamo's killing as well as the beating of a prominent Syrian activist, saying it showed "again that the Assad regime's promises for dialogue and reform are hollow."

The official SANA news agency reported Tamo's "assassination" but gave a different account of his death, saying he was killed "by gunmen in a black car who fired at his car."

Also Friday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Assad will have to leave power if he fails to implement reforms acceptable to the opposition, and Damascus again blamed "terrorists" for the unrest.