White House: Obama Has No Doubt Syria 'Will Be Better Off' without Assad

The United States said Monday it was working with "a broad array" of other countries to pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end the "outright murder of his own people."

Assad "has to cease the systematic violence, mass arrests, and the outright murder of his own people," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

"By his actions he has demonstrated that he has lost legitimacy to lead, and the president (Barack Obama) has no doubt that Syria will be better off without him," said Carney.

"The Syrian people deserve a peaceful transition to democracy; they deserve a government that doesn’t torture them, arrest them and kill them. And we are looking, together with a broad array of international partners, to increase pressure on President Assad," said the spokesman.

His comments came as Syrian forces killed three people on Monday a day after gunboats pounded the port city of Latakia, forcing thousands of Palestinians to flee a refugee camp located there, activists and a U.N. agency said.

The Palestinians condemned Syria over the violence as the U.N. Relief and Works Agency reported that more than 5,000 refugees had fled Ramel camp in southern Latakia under fire and demanded immediate access to the site.

Palestine Liberation Organization secretary general Yasser Abed Rabbo denounced the attack on the Ramel camp and said such violence was "part of the crimes against humanity" targeting Palestinians and Syrians alike.

Jordan, adding its voice to a recent chorus of Arab condemnation of the Syrian crackdown on dissent, urged Damascus to "immediately" stop the violence and "listen to reason," state-run Petra news agency reported.