"Social adviser" unites Syrian opposition Moaz al-Khatib turns his face away and fights tears as he recalls watching a young girl protesting in front of the Libyan embassy in Damascus in February 2011, just before Syria's own revolution broke out. I don't know the woman but I always remember her because she affected me so much. She was shouting for a whole hour and she did not stop crying," he says. Over the past two years, as Syrians have pushed for the fall of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the 52-year-old geophysicist and preacher has - between stints in jail - attended several demonstrations. As one of the few figures whom Mr Assad's opponents could agree on to lead them, Mr al-Khatib now heads Syria's main opposition group. During his most recent arrest, before he fled Damascus to Cairo in July, he was deprived of sleep and thrown into a tiny cell crammed with 25 other prisoners. "It felt close to death," he recalls in an interview with the Financial Times. Although Mr al-Khatib is not a politician and was never part of a political organisation - he describes himself as more as a "social adviser" - he had long been a thorn in the side of the Assad family that has ruled Syria for four decades. The son of a Damascene Sunni Muslim family of religious scholars, he was banned from preaching in mosques for the past 17 years. "I used to say that religion without freedom and justice is fake," he says. Last month, he emerged as one of the rare figures on which a fractious opposition could find consensus. Since then, the Syrian National Coalition has established itself as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, with more than 100 countries, including the US, recognising it on Wednesday at a conference in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh. Mr Khatib says the Friends of Syria conference represents a "very big political gain" and further strips the regime of legitimacy. But, speaking from his Marrakesh hotel room hours after the meeting, he also suggests that foreign involvement with Syria comes a little too late. "The international community has been in a slumber, silent and late as it saw the blood of the people bleeding and its children being killed for the last 20 months," he says. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict since March 2011. Openly critical of the US decision to brand a jihadi rebel group, Jabhat al-Nusra, as a terrorist organisation, suggesting this move could be counterproductive, he says the world community is partly to blame for the emergence of extremist groups in Syria. He seems in no rush to answer an invitation from the US administration to visit Washington, saying that he has no objection in principle but he has other commitments in the near future. "When the international community intervenes at the right time and when it moves to defend people at the right time it makes societies stable," he says. The wrong international policies have led to extremism. Having fought on their own, and now getting closer to dislodging the regime as the battles move to the heart of Damascus, Syrians are no longer looking for international military intervention or UN peacekeepers, he says. The opposition wants weapons but even without more supplies, "the Syrian people will uproot this regime even using their nails," he says. Critics say Mr al-Khatib has held anti-western views in the past, pointing to some of his sermons. Within the opposition too, some people grumble that he lacks political experience and are uncomfortable with his Islamist leanings. Others, however, say that Mr al-Khatib is a national figure and a man of consensus, a moderate Islamist and a passionate preacher who can reach out to the increasingly radicalised rebels and, crucially, to Syria's minorities, some of whom remain loyal to the regime. There is no doubt that Mr al-Khatib speaks the language of the revolution, even when it clashes with western policy. At a time when Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN envoy, is said to be discussing with the US and Russia a political transition in which Mr Assad would hand over executive power to a transitional administration, the Syrian opposition leader is adamant that no transition can take place with the president in power. If the regime decides to leave, he says, then a mechanism for a transition can be discussed and it will require international guarantees. Mr al-Khatib reserves his harshest criticism for Russia, which he says would be "particularly responsible" if Mr Assad resorts to the use of chemical weapons. I believe that the Russians have woken up and are sensing that they have implicated themselves with this regime but they don't know how to get out. As the rebels tighten the noose around the regime and government security forces escalate the conflict by firing Scud missiles for the first time this week from Damascus into northern Syria, Mr al-Khatib says there are three scenarios for the end of the Assad era. The first and most costly is that Mr Assad fights until the end and this will prolong the conflict; the second is an implosion of the regime, a change from within that would save Syria more bloodshed; and the third is the departure of the regime within a political solution. Would the opposition, which wants Mr Assad tried by the International Criminal Court, agree to an exile for the Syrian president? If Bashar wants [to leave] he could through some channels send a clear message ... that he wants to end the destruction of the country. Some international mediators from the UN or others could listen to him but we will not commit to anything until we study it [a proposal].