Aleppo:
Syria today denied opposition claims that top regime official Vice President Faruq al-Shara had defected as its armed forces pounded rebels in several key flashpoints across the country.
The United Nations mean while won support from the West as well as Russia and China for its new envoy for Syria, veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi who was named yesterday to replace Kofi Annan.
In Damascus, state television issued a statement from Shara's office after opposition and media reports that he had fled, saying: "Mr Shara has never thought about leaving the country or going anywhere."
Shara, 73, is the most powerful Sunni Muslim figure in the minority Alawite-led regime of President Bashar al-Assad and has served in top posts for almost 30 years.
Adding to the mystery, a former deputy oil minister who defected in March, said Shara was actually under house arrest.
"Shara's position is well known. He has been trying to leave Syria," Abdo Hussameddin told pan-Arab television Al-Arabiya.
"But there are a series of circumstances that prevent him from leaving, especially the fact that he has been under house arrest for some time," he said, adding that top officials in Syria were being kept under surveillance.
Assad's regime has already been hard hit by a series of defections since the anti-regime revolt broke out in March 2011, including former prime minister Riad Hijab and high profile general Manaf Tlass -- a childhood friend of Assad.
"Initial reports show that there was an attempted defection, but that it failed," the rebel Free Syrian Army said in a statement referring to Shara.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius had said this week that there could be more "spectacular" defections from the regime, which was also shaken last month by a bomb attack in Damascus claimed by the FSA which killed four security chiefs.