On Friday, as angry protesters lamented inaction by Arab countries, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to work out how to help the opposition in talks with Saudi Arabia, the biggest advocate for arming the rebels against President Bashar Assad.
Her visit comes ahead of a 60-nation weekend gathering of the so-called "Friends of the Syrian People" in Istanbul.
The meeting is an effort to find ways to aid Syria's fractured opposition, which has been frustrated by the government's military gains on the ground. The US is seeking to unify Syria's opposition movement and find ways to further isolate Assad's regime.
Assad accepted a peace plan brokered by Annan earlier this week and promised on Thursday to "spare no effort" to make sure it succeeds. But he demanded that armed forces battling his regime commit to halting violence as well.
Underscoring the challenges, activists reported shifting clashes, some close to the capital Damascus, and others in the northern Idlib province, the restive central province of Homs and the country's east. The reported death toll ranged from 34 to 42.
Thousands of angry protesters emerged from mosques following Friday prayers nationwide, calling for Assad's ouster and protesting resolutions adopted by Arab leaders at a summit the day before in Baghdad. The leaders called for talks between the government and the opposition - not for Assad to step down, which is the key opposition demand.
"Talks with the butcher?" read a banner carried by a child in the Damascus suburb of Arbeen.
"The most woeful weapon facing Syrians is the abandonment by Arabs and the silence of Muslims," read another carried by protesters in the northern town of Kfarrouma.
Syria's uprising began a year ago with peaceful anti-Assad protests, which were met with a fierce government crackdown. Since then, army defectors and protesters have taken up weapons, saying their only hope is to drive out Assad through force. The UN estimates more than 9,000 people have been killed in the fighting.
Many Syrians are frustrated at the lack of will for foreign military intervention in Syria and are deeply sceptical Assad will carry out Annan's peace plan, saying the president has accepted it just to win time while his forces continue their bloody campaign to crush the uprising.
The leader of the Syrian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said on Friday it has now become clear that the only solution in Syria is a political one that includes Assad himself.
"The only thing on the table today is a political solution based on dialogue between the government and the opposition and a consensus on serious and real reforms and their implementation," he said in a speech south of Beirut. "This is what would save Syria, and the region along with it."
For the US and its allies, Syria is proving an especially murky conflict with no easy solutions. Assad's regime is one of Washington's clearest foes, a government that has long been closely allied with Iran and anti-Israel groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-led Gulf countries are eager to see Assad's fall in hopes of breaking Syria out of its alliance with their regional rival, Shi'ite-majority Iran.
Also on Friday, the US expanded sanctions against top members of Assad's military and security apparatus.
The Treasury Department placed Syrian Defence Minister Dawood Rajiha, army deputy chief of staff Munir Adanov and the head of Assad's presidential security unit Zuhayr Shalish on a blacklist that freezes any assets they may have in US jurisdictions. It also bars Americans from doing business with the three men.
Assad himself and a number of others in his inner circle have already been targeted by US sanctions as the regime stepped up its brutal repression of an opposition uprising.
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