International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said after talks with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday that the escalating conflict in the country posed a global threat.

Activists say more than 27,000 people have been killed in the 18-month-old uprising against Assad, which started as a mainly peaceful street campaign for reform but has become a bloody insurgency that is deepening sectarian rifts in the Middle East.

"This crisis is deteriorating and represents a danger to the Syrian people, to the region, and to the whole world," Brahimi told reporters in Damascus after speaking with Assad for an hour at the presidential palace.

It was the veteran Algerian diplomat's first meeting with the Syrian leader since he replaced Kofi Annan as mediator two weeks ago, taking on a mission that he described as "nearly impossible".

Assad's forces and the out-gunned but increasingly effective rebel fighters seeking his overthrow have ignored appeals to end the conflict, which continues to affect most of Syria's main cities, including Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and Deir al-Zor.

Damascus residents reported hearing heavy overnight bombardment followed by the sound of jet planes swooping over the capital shortly after 7am (0400 GMT) on Saturday.

One resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said black smoke was rising from the southern Damascus neighbourhood of Hajar al-Aswad on Saturday afternoon; just days after Assad's forces drove rebels out of the nearby district of Tadamon.

"There is very strong shelling to the south of Damascus. The roads have been closed and there are tanks," the resident said.

The mainly Sunni Muslim rebels are supported by Gulf Arab states and neighbouring Turkey in their struggle to topple Assad, whose minority Alawite faith is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Shi'ite Iran has been Assad's staunchest ally.

"It's not a secret that the gap between the parties is very wide," Brahimi said, adding that he still believed there was "common ground" for them to resolve the crisis.

BENEDICT'S APPEAL

Louay Hussein, a prominent Syrian opposition activist in Damascus who met Brahimi, said the mediator "knew the map of the crisis ... (and was) optimistic."

Assad allows a few opposition figures to operate in the country; but they have little influence over the opposition in exile and the armed revolt.

Syrian authorities say they are fighting Islamist "terrorists" and accuse regional Sunni Muslim powers of worsening the bloodshed by helping arm the president's foes.

State news agency Sana quoted Assad as telling Brahimi that the success of his mission hinged on "pressuring countries which finance and train the terrorists, and which traffic weapons to Syria, to stop these actions".

His comments came a day after Pope Benedict, starting a three-day visit to neighbouring Lebanon, branded the flow of arms into Syria a "grave sin" and called for a halt to it.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group monitoring the violence, said 160 people were killed in Syria on Friday, as Brahimi met Russian and Chinese diplomats in Damascus. On Thursday he spoke with the Iranian ambassador.

World powers are deadlocked in the UN Security Council along Cold War lines, with the United States and its Nato allies supporting the call for Assad to quit and Russia and China defending him against what they see as outside meddling.

Moscow and Beijing have three times blocked Western-backed attempts in the Security Council to criticise and threaten sanctions against Damascus.

"I believe that the president realises more than me the dimensions and the danger of this crisis," Brahimi said.

The mediator said Assad and his officials had pledged to support his work, adding that he would return to the region soon after talks in New York with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. – Reuters