Syria denounced international intervention and accused the West of trying to unleash "total chaos", AFP reports.

China meanwhile expressed its concern at the wider implications of the violence in Syria, even as the United States pressed Beijing, a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, to back stronger UN action against Damascus.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said the West wanted chaos that will lead to the break-up of the country. Anti-regime protests were also a "pretext for foreign interventions", he said at the UN General Assembly in New York.

Foreign governments were trying to undermine co-existence between Syria's different religious groups, he added.

"How can we otherwise explain media provocations, financing and arming religious extremism?" he said. "What purpose could this serve other than total chaos that would dismember Syria - and consequently adversely affect its neighbors?"