The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has called on other nations with closer economic links to Syria to join it in sanctions on Bashar al-Assad's regime.
She said Washington had been "very clear" in its statements about Assad's loss of legitimacy but the "real trick" was to convince "the Europeans and the Arabs and the Chinese and the Indians and others" to do more.
"We're going to sanction and we have been upping the sanctions. We're going to continue to do so," she said. "But we want others to follow, because Syria was not one of our major economic partners."
Clinton said it was necessary to sanction Syria's oil and gas industry.
A security crackdown has been ongoing in Syria since the start of Ramadan 11 days ago. Security forces killed at least 10 more people on Thursday as the raids and repression continued.
Mass demonstrations are expected across the country on Friday – the "day of not kneeling". A Facebook group, the Syrian Revolution 2011, said in a defiant message: "We only kneel before God."
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