US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed Sunday to bolster the existing sanctions against the Syrian regime and seek further ones to block funding and arms shipments to Damascus.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed Sunday to bolster the existing sanctions against the Syrian regime and seek further ones to block funding and arms shipments to Damascus.

Seeking to make up for her country’s failure in issuing a UN resolution against Al-Assad after Russia and China’s veto, Clinton stated that Washington will also work with “Syria's friends worldwide to support the peaceful aims of the opposition.”

“What happened yesterday at the United Nations was a travesty," Clinton said during her visit to Bulgaria following her failed talks in Munich with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"Those countries that refused to support the Arab League plan bear full responsibility for protecting the brutal regime in Damascus," Clinton said in a joint press conference with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov.

She claimed that the 13 of the 15 Security Council members who backed the resolution sought to start a "process for political engagement that would lead to a transition" of power in Syria.

"We feared that failure to do so would actually increase the chances for a brutal civil war," Clinton further warned, assuring that the US will “redouble its efforts outside the UN to support the Syrian people”.

The US secretary of state said that "we have to increase diplomatic pressure on Al-Assad’s regime and work to convince those people around President Al-Assad that he must go,” and pledged to seek regional and national sanctions against Syria.

"They will be implemented to the fullest to dry up the sources of funding and the arms shipments that are keeping the regime's war machine going," she added.