Bashar al-Assad vows to 'cleanse' Syria of extremism Bouti's funeral is scheduled for Saturday at Damascus's Umayyad Mosque, with authorities declaring a day of national mourning. Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, the head of the umbrella opposition National Coalition, condemned the cleric's killing as a "crime" and suggested the regime could have been behind it. In Dublin, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said the EU's policy of providing only non-lethal equipment to the Syrian opposition must end if Mr Assad is to be ousted from power. "In order to support a diplomatic and political settlement which is essential for peaceful transition, it will be necessary for us to increase the support that we give to the National Coalition on the ground," Mr Hague said in comments mirrored by Laurent Fabius, his French counterpart. But Britain and France were left isolated as the other 25 EU ministers rallied behind Germany. Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister, warned that sending weapons was likely to have unintended and negative consequences. He said more civilians would be killed in crossfire, and Western-supplied weapons could end up in the hands of anti-Western jihadists, who are being blamed for Thursday night's mosque bombing. "We have to avoid a conflagration and we have to prevent that aggressive offensive weapons come into the wrong hands," he said.