China said Thursday it disapproved of "one-sided" sanctions and pressure on Syria after France raised the prospect of a new raft of punitive measures against President Bashar Assad's regime.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Wednesday said he would consult with Western allies to prepare tough new sanctions against Assad's regime, as battles between troops and rebels rage in Syria.

At least 60 people were killed on Thursday in violence across Syria, including 10 in the central province of Homs, and as car bombs exploded in Damascus and the northwest city of Idlib, monitors reported.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said regime forces killed 60 people across the country, among them four children, two women and a rebel Free Syrian Army commander.

Syria is committing crimes against humanity as part of state policy to exact revenge against communities suspected of supporting rebels, Amnesty International said in a report released Wednesday.

The London-based rights group called for an international response after claiming it had fresh evidence that victims, including children, had been dragged from their homes and shot dead by soldiers, who in some cases then set the remains on fire.

Afghanistan on Thursday hosts the latest round of international talks on its future after NATO troops leave in 2014, with the conflict in Syria also likely to feature prominently in ministerial meetings.

Representatives from 29 countries are gathering in Kabul for the one-day conference, which follows a meeting in Istanbul in November aimed at mapping out the future of the war-torn country after the withdrawal of coalition troops.

The United States Wednesday denied Russia's claim that it is arming Syria's opposition and expressed new concern over what it says is Moscow's supply of attack helicopters to Damascus.

"We do not and have not supplied weapons to the Syrian opposition. You know our position on that and we have made it very clear," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

Syria, where a 15-month conflict is spiraling to new heights, has started its descent into hell, the Vatican's ambassador to the Middle East country said Wednesday.

Nuncio Mario Zenari would not be drawn on whether Syria was in the midst of a "civil war", a term being used increasingly by the international community, but he said "the impression prevails (that for) the people a descent into hell has started".

A Jesuit priest who revived an ancient monastery in Syria and who has campaigned for peace talks said on Wednesday he was being expelled from the country.

"I leave Syria at the request of the Church and civil authorities," Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, who heads the monastery of Deir Mar Musa some 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of Damascus, told Agance France Press.

As Syria's conflict spirals to vicious new depths, Iran is doubling down on its support for Damascus out of fear of losing its main pillar of regional influence, analysts said.

The backing reflects Tehran and Damascus's shared anti-West, anti-Israel position and mutual succor as each weathers international sanctions and attempts to isolate them.

France plans to ask the United Nations Security Council to make U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's Syria ceasefire plan mandatory, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Wednesday, as British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that Syria was "on the edge of a collapse."

Fabius called on fellow Security Council members to "take recourse to Chapter Seven (of the U.N. charter) to make the measures in the Annan plan obligatory."

The crisis in Syria and its impact on Lebanon have put in doubt Pope Benedict XVI's planned visit to Lebanon in September, reports said Wednesday.

The trip scheduled for September 14 to 16 remains confirmed on the program published regularly on the pope's planned visits.