Ammon News - By AL ARABIYA WITH AFP

President Barack Obama granted U.S. recognition on Tuesday to a Syrian opposition coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, a move aimed at ratcheting up pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to leave power.

Obama announced his decision in an interview with ABC News on the eve of a meeting of Syrian opposition leaders and their international allies in Morocco, but he stopped short of authorizing U.S. arming of the opposition fighting to overthrow Assad.

"It's a big step," Obama said in a step that could provide a diplomatic boost to the anti-Assad political cause after nearly two years of fighting.

As Washington cranked up pressure on beleaguered President Bashar al-Assad, the Obama administration also blacklisted the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, which officials here fear seeks to hijack the revolution, as a terrorist group.

It was another day of carnage inside Syria, meanwhile, as scores of civilians from Assad’s minority sect were reported killed, in what appeared to be the largest scale revenge attacks yet against Alawites.

The United States has edged slowly towards recognizing the opposition Syrian National Coalition, and its move follows similar action by France, Britain, Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council regional grouping.

The process was slowed by concerns that the coalition, recently reconstituted under U.S. pressure, did not represent all of Syrian society, had links to extremists, and did not fully subscribe to democratic principles.

“We have made a decision that the Syrian opposition coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population, that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people,” Obama told ABC News in an interview.

Major powers are set to give Syria's opposition full political recognition on Wednesday but not the weapons that opposition fighters need to counter Assad's superior firepower as they gain ground across the country.

The "Friends of Syria," a loose forum of governments opposed to Assad, will meet in the Moroccan city of Marrakech as the opposition intensify their push on Damascus and signs grow that the 20-month uprising may be nearing a tipping point.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been expected to make the announcement at a Friends of the Syrian People meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, Wednesday but could not travel owing to illness.

Washington has so far only provided humanitarian, non-lethal aid to the opposition, officially declining to send arms, a position White House spokesman Carney reiterated on Tuesday.

The U.S. administration made clear that it was differentiating between the Council and Al-Nusra, which it sees as having extreme tendencies.

“There is a small element of those that oppose the Assad regime, that in fact are affiliated with al-Qaeda in Iraq and we have designated them, Al-Nusra, as a terrorist organization,” Obama said in the interview.

The strike on Alawites came in bomb attacks in the village of Aqrab in the central province of Hama and killed or wounded at least 125 civilians, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“We cannot know whether the rebels were behind this attack, but if they were, this would be the largest-scale revenge attack against Alawites,” members of a Shiite sect in Sunni-majority Syria, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP news agency.

Aqrab is near Houla, a majority Sunni Muslim village where 108 people, including 49 children and 34 women, were massacred on May 25 in what was widely blamed on pro-regime militias despite denials from Damascus.

Washington also Tuesday said it was now less concerned than last week that Assad could resort to using chemical weapons stockpiles against opposition fighters.