Barack Obama, the US president, has said Syria's deadly crackdown on protesters "must come to an end now" and accused Damascus of seeking Iranian help to repress its people. Almost 90 protesters were killed on Friday, according to human rights group Amnesty International, in the bloodiest violence in a month of escalating protests against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's rule.

US President Barack Obama has accused Syria of using "outrageous" force against protesters and of seeking Iranian help to quell weeks of unrest. He condemned "in the strongest possible terms" Friday's violence in which more than 70 protesters were killed. He said President Bashar al-Assad refused to respect the rights of protesters, and had instead used the same tactics as his Iranian allies.