U.S.closes Syrian embassy as diplomacy collapses

 The U.S. has closed its Embassy in Syria and Britain recalled its ambassador  in a new Western push to get President Bashar Assad to leave power and halt the murderous grind in Syria .

Although the diplomatic effort failed  at the U.N. by vetoes from Russia and China, the moves by the U.S. and Britain were a clear message that Western powers see no point in engaging with Assad and now will seek to  Syria’s opposition.

“This is a doomed regime as well as a murdering regime,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague told  as he recalled his country’s ambassador from Syria on Monday. “There is no way it can recover its credibility internationally.”

President Barack Obama said the Syrian leader’s departure is only a matter of time.

“We have been  sending a message that it is time for Assad to go,” Obama said ”

The most serious violence on Monday was reported in Homs, where Syrian government forces, using tanks and machine guns, shelled a Medical clinic and residential areas  an assault, killing a reported 40 people, activists said. More than a dozen others were reported killed elsewhere.

200 people died, the highest on  Saturday, the day when Russia and China vetoed a Western-backed  resolution aimed  to end the crackdown on dissent.

Apart , the Italian Foreign Ministry said it had also summoned Syria’s ambassador in Rome to express “the strongest condemnation  over the unacceptable acts of violence perpetrated by the regime of Damascus against the civilian population.”

More than 5,400 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began in March, the U.N. said. Hundreds more are believe to have been killed since then,

The  Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for “friends of democratic Syria” to unite and rally against Assad’s regime .