The new head of Syria’s main opposition group said yesterday the regime is on its last legs, as the death toll in the uprising topped 14,000 amid calls for military defections and civil disobedience.

“We are entering a sensitive phase. The regime is on its last legs,” Kurdish activist Abdel Basset Sayda told AFP shortly after being named the new leader of the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC).

“The multiplying massacres and shellings show that it is struggling,” he said of mass deaths of civilians.

At his first press conference since taking over the reins, Sayda called on all members of the Damascus regime to defect, while reaching out to minority groups by promising them a full say in a future, democratic Syria.

“We call upon all officials in the regime and in the institutions to defect from the regime,” Sayda told reporters in Istanbul.

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) meanwhile called for a campaign of mass “civil disobedience,” and also urged officers and troops in President Bashar Assad’s regime to jump ship and join the rebel ranks.

“We call on Syrians to launch a general strike leading to mass civil disobedience,” FSA spokesman in Syria Col. Kassem Saadeddine said in a statement.