The main Syrian National Council opposition group demanded yesterday that the conflict’s new international mediator apologize for saying it was too early to comment on whether President Bashar Assad should step down.

The Syrian National Council (SNC) said Lakhdar Brahimi appeared to be giving Assad time to pursue his military crackdown.

The statement came as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two children were among at least seven people killed in shelling by Assad’s troops yesterday as violence showed no let-up on the first day of the Eid Al-Fitr holiday.

Brahimi said Sunday it is no longer a question of “preventing civil war” in Syria but rather stopping it as the country is already in the throes of the “cruelest” conflict.

“A civil war, it is the cruelest kind of conflict, when a neighbor kills his neighbor and sometimes his brother, it is the worst of conflicts,” said Brahimi in an interview with France 24 television at his Paris apartment.

“There are a lot of people who say that we must avoid civil war in Syria, me I believe that we are already there for some time now. What’s necessary is to stop the civil war and that is not going to be easy,” said the Algerian diplomat.

The council said Brahimi showed “disregard for the blood of the Syrian people and their right of self-determination.”

“Whoever gives this criminal regime an opportunity to kill tens of thousands more Syrians and destroy what is left of Syria does not want to recognize the extent of the tragedy,” the council said in a statement.

Syria’s popular uprising, which began in March 2011, has spiralled into an armed conflict with more than 21,000 deaths over the past 17 months, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The United Nations puts the death toll at 17,000.

Brahimi said that “change is inevitable” in Syria, adding that it must be far-reaching.

“The aspirations of the Syrian people must be satisfied,” he said, without saying whether Assad must step down from power.

Brahimi, appointed by the UN Security Council to replace Kofi Annan, has been welcomed by the West as well as by Assad’s traditional allies Russia and China, although the White House said it would seek clarifications on the terms of his mandate.

The 78-year-old, who also serves as the Syrian envoy for the Arab League, has experience in handling difficult missions after representing the UN in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The SNC said that, according to its own tally, the number killed by Assad’s forces had risen from a few hundred a month last year to an average of 2,000 a month to 5,000 during Ramadan, which ended on Saturday.

The Observatory said a boy and a girl were killed by regime forces’ shelling in the town of Maaret Al-Numan.

Children across the Muslim world were set to receive new clothes and gifts for Eid — but in Syria, there was no respite from the bloodshed.

“This is how we celebrate Eid!” chanted a crowd of protesters who took to the streets of Kafr Zeita, in Hama, according to a video posted on YouTube by activists.

At least 137 people were killed across Syria on Saturday — 63 civilians, 31 rebel fighters and 43 soldiers, the Observatory said.