'I will live and die in Syria'

Syrian opposition leaders say they have made progress toward forging a broad-based leadership group sought by the international community.

Riad Seif, the author of the proposal, says the main opposition bloc, the Syrian National Council, deferred a decision until after a final round of internal elections Friday. Seif says some of the SNC members present during day-long talks Thursday signaled they accept the idea of setting up a new 60-member leadership group.

The leadership group is to serve as a conduit for foreign support for those trying to oust President Bashar Assad.

Meanwhile, President Bashar al-Assad said he would "live and die" in Syria and warned any Western invasion to topple him would have catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and beyond.

"I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country," he told Russia Today television in an interview to be broadcast on Friday. "I am Syrian; I was made in Syria. I will live and die in Syria."

The Syrian leader, battling a 19-month old uprising against his rule, appeared to reject an idea floated by British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday that a safe exit and foreign exile for the London-educated Assad could end the civil war.

The United States and its allies want the Syrian leader out, but have held back from arming his opponents or enforcing a no-fly zone, let alone invading. Russia has stood by Assad.

The president said he doubted the West would risk the global cost of intervening in Syria, whose conflict has already added to instability in the Middle East and killed some 38,000 people.

"I think that the price of this invasion, if it happened, is going to be bigger than the whole world can afford ... It will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific," the 47-year-old president said.

"I do not think the West is going in this direction, but if they do so, nobody can tell what is next."

Across Syria, more than 90 people were killed in fighting on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.