Fifty thousand Syrians rallied against the regime of President Bashar Assad on Saturday during the funeral of Meshaal Tamo, a Kurdish opposition figure slain the previous day, activists said.

"The funeral of Kurdish leader Meshaal Tamo, who was assassinated yesterday in the city of Qamishli, turned into a mass rally with more than 50,000 demonstrators calling for fall of the regime," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Eleven opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime were arrested after invading the country's embassy in Vienna and demonstrating on the balcony, police said Saturday.

They said some 20 people broke into the embassy in central Vienna's Landstrasse overnight, while dozens of others cheered them on in the street.

Russia expects a delegation of Syrian opposition politicians to visit Tuesday, a senior foreign ministry official said on Saturday.

"We are ready to meet them at the foreign ministry. This could happen on October 11 if they manage to arrive in time," deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov told the ITAR-TASS news agency.

Some 500 Druze living on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on Friday held a rally of support for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, an AFP photographer said.

Waving Syrian flags and portraits of Assad, the demonstrators marched through Majdal Shams. "We love you, Bashar ... We are with the Syrian army," they chanted.

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

In a statement, spokesman Jay Carney condemned the killing of Kurdish opposition leader Meshaal Tamo 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."

A top Kurdish activist and nine other people were killed Friday as thousands rallied in support of a new opposition front, activists said, as Washington accused Syria of escalating attacks on dissidents.

The latest violence came as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said President Bashar al-Assad will have to leave power if he fails to implement reforms acceptable to the opposition, and Damascus again blamed "terrorists" for the unrest.

Eight Syrians were shot dead on Friday as thousands of people rallied against the regime of President Bashar Assad and in support of a newly formed opposition front, activists said.

The fresh surge of violence came as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Assad will have to give up power if he fails to implement reforms acceptable to the opposition, and the Syrian regime again blamed "terrorists" for the unrest.

Syrians rallied in their thousands after weekly prayers on Friday, pledging support to a newly-formed opposition front and calling for an end to President Bashar Assad's regime, activists said.

Sirte was rocked by deadly street fighting on Friday in what troops from the new regime said was the final assault on Moammar Gadhafi's besieged hometown, with orders that they take it "today."

Medics said at least four regime fighters had been killed and dozens more wounded from fighting on the west side of the city, and an Agence France Presse correspondent said ambulances continued to arrive in a steady stream at a nearby field hospital.

Syria will shortly present the United Nations with a list of more than 1,100 people it says have been killed by "terrorists" in ongoing unrest in the country, its deputy foreign minister said Friday.

"Syria is grappling with terrorist threats," Faysal Mekdad said in a speech to the 47-state U.N. Human Rights Council at it reviewed the situation in Syria.