The United States declined to follow France in fully recognizing a fledgling Syrian opposition coalition on Wednesday, November 15 saying the body must prove its worth, after its predecessor was dogged by feuding and accusations of Islamist domination, Reuters reported.

Syria decried the new grouping, which it said had closed the door to a negotiated solution with President Bashar al-Assad.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the formation of the coalition, which supersedes the widely discredited Syrian National Council as the face of the Syrian opposition, was an important step, but did not offer it full recognition or arms.

The new body brings the Syrian National Council, the hapless former main opposition group seen as under the sway of Islamists and out of touch with rebels on the ground, into a broader bloc with factions inside and outside Syria including rebel fighters, veteran dissidents and ethnic and religious minorities.

On Tuesday France hailed the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces "as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people and as future government of a democratic Syria" - the first Western power to go that far.

Six Gulf Arab states had taken that step the day before, but the Arab League and most European countries hung back.