He spoke as Syrian forces launched a blistering assault on the rebel stronghold of Rastan in central Homs province, in a new bid to overrun one of the major opposition holdouts against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
There were also more deaths and anti-regime protests, as UN observers tasked with monitoring a tenuous UN-backed ceasefire visited the Aleppo University campus, activists said.
Ghalioun, who had led by consensus rather than through election since the SNC's founding in October, was elected as the exile group's chairman in a vote held in Rome on Tuesday.
He said he would remain an SNC member "hand-in-hand with the young people who struggle, the young people of the revolution of dignity and freedom, until victory," while urging all opposition groups to unite ranks.
Hours earlier the Local Coordination Committees, a network of activists on the ground, threatened to pull out of the SNC over its lack of collaboration with activists in Syria and "monopolisation" of power.
"The deteriorating situation in the SNC is an impetus for us to take actions, which could begin with a freeze (of LCC membership in the SNC) and end with a withdrawal if errors are not solved and demands for reform go unmet," the LCC said.
It pointed to "a total absence of consensus between the SNC's vision and that of the revolutionaries" and charged that influential SNC members were monopolising power and marginalising most of the LCC representatives.
The LCC also criticised the SNC over the strong influence that Syria's Muslim Brotherhood wields over the coalition.
Meanwhile, Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said at least 30 shells smashed into Rastan in a 10-minute period after midnight, and urged UN observers monitoring a shaky truce to immediately rush to the town.
"The army is trying to gradually destroy Rastan," Abdel Rahman told AFP.
The Britain-based Observatory also reported that five civilians, members of the same family and including two children, were killed Thursday when a mortar shell slammed into their home in Douma, near Damascus.
And in northern Syrian thousands of students from Aleppo University protested on campus, calling for the fall of the regime, as UN observers visited, activists said.
A spokesman for a group of activists in Aleppo, Mohammed Halabi, told AFP in Beirut by telephone:
"Thousands of students from various faculties came out of their classes when the UN observers arrived and shouted slogans calling for the fall of the regime."
They "also called for the arming of the (rebel) Syrian Free Army)," he said in a telephone call.
Activists also posted videotapes showing students insulting President Bashar al-Assad and chanting for freedom in Syria.
Assad, in an interview with Russian TV, accused the West on Wednesday of ignoring violence by "terrorists" and said he would demand an explanation from Annan when he visits Damascus this month.
He also denounced the armed opposition as a gang of "criminals" who he said contained religious extremists, including members of Al-Qaeda.
Russia, a key ally of Assad's regime, cautioned Western powers against launching "hasty" wars that could lead to the rise of radical Islamist factions and all-out regional war.
"The consequence of hasty military operations in foreign states usually means that radicals come to power," said Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's premier and former president.
"And sometimes these actions -- which undermine state sovereignty -- could result in a fully fledged regional war," he said, in clear reference to Moscow's current standoff with the West over Syria.
The prime minister of Qatar, which has in the past called for arming the Syrian opposition, accused Damascus of continuing to kill civilians.
"The killing of civilians is ongoing there regardless of the international will to stop this bloodshed," said Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani during a visit to Bulgaria.
"UN negotiations are underway but the killings continue. This is intolerable," he said.
More than 12,000 people, the majority of them civilians, have died since the Syrian uprising began, according to the Observatory, including more than 900 killed since the putative truce came into effect.
The UN mission in Syria says it now has 236 military observers in the country.
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"He is pursuing his hunger strike and subsides on liquids for his survival," said Jishi.
He said he met Khawaja at Jaw prison, south of Manama.
Khawaja was taken to Jaw on Tuesday weeks after being kept in a military hospital for observation.
"His health has slightly improved because he was force fed," the lawyer said of Khawaja.
Khawaja, who has become a symbol of Bahrain's opposition movement, was arrested in April 2011, shortly after a regime crackdown on a month-long Shiite-led uprising that killed 35 people, according to an independent probe.
He and and 20 other mostly Shiite activists were convicted in June of plotting to overthrow the Sunni rulers of the Shiite-majority Gulf kingdom.
Seven of them, including Khawaja, were jailed for life, while 14 others were sentenced to between two and 15 years in prison.
Bahrain's judicial authorities ordered a retrial, with a hearing due next week.
Khawaja began his hunger strike on February 8 to protest the conviction and later said he would refrain from drinking water as well, triggering concern for his health.
Looking frail, but alert, Khawaja told the BBC on May 1 that he will keep up his hunger strike, during a meeting with correspondent Frank Gardner and producer Mark Georgiou.
The pair were allowed to see him for five minutes at the military hospital during which Khawaja told them "his medical treatment had been good 'except for the force-feeding,'" a claim denied by authorities, BBC reported.
In a picture of the meeting on the BBC website, Khawaja was sitting at the edge of his hospital bed, with a bowl and a cup at the night table next to him.
The BBC reported that Khawaja was "drinking fluids, and hospital staff said he was also drinking regular nutritional supplements."
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The $25-billion collection, hailed as one of the greatest art collections in the world, features more Cezannes than there are in Paris. There is Henri Matisse's largest work, numerous masterpieces by Picasso, and 181 Renoirs.
Even now there is not full agreement, however, with supporters heralding a new era and some detractors worrying that improvements came at the cost of the original museum's soul.
"The Barnes today is more stable and more secure," insisted Joseph Neubauer, the vice-chairman of the foundation's board of trustees. "The pictures have never had a better home."
In addition to the impressive number of post-Impressionist and early-modern works, the Barnes also houses a significant amount of works by African-American and Native American artists.
But the real charm of the collection has always been in the iconoclastic manner in which the art was hung, the paintings arranged with total disregard to traditional notions of art history or theory.
So one Picasso was placed between unframed religious works by 19th Century painters in New Mexico. In another room, the paintings appeared in a cross comprised of works by 13th century Italian masters and unnamed Chinese artists.
This made for a unique experience for art lovers.
The foundation was also long-famously difficult to visit, with waiting lists often spanning months. Barnes himself famously turned down requests to see the collection.
The new building, while keeping the quirky layout, will help resolve that.
Entrance to the museum is sold out for the first ten days. But the new building will allow 225,000 visitors each year, compared to a previous maximum audience of 62,000.
While advance reservations are recommended, they may not be necessary.
"We always intend to keep a few tickets back for walk-ins," said Andrew Stewart, a spokesman for the foundation. "We were never able to do that in the old location."
The move comes with attempts to fix the foundation's finances, which were in dire straits by the 1990s.
Not everyone welcomed this. The foundation's wealthy neighbors feared increased traffic, while the plan to move the collection caused huge bitterness.
Opponents saw an attempt to betray Barnes' legacy and use it to bring more tourists to Philadelphia.
"This was a gift by a man who was a total visionary art collector," Evelyn Yaari, an opponent of the move told AFP last year. "If you move it downtown, it is not that gift."
Already tourism officials have launched a $2 million ad campaign to position the city as a major destination. They have dubbed the parkway the Foundation sits on the "Museum Mile" highlighting its proximity to The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Rodin Museum.
Proponents of the move -- members of Philadelphia's business elite -- saw it as a way to save the collection and keep it independent. The board decided to move all the way back in 2002.
"In many ways, it was a lonely decision for us to make," said Stephen Harmelin, treasurer for the foundation.
The fight attracted the attention of the nation's largest newspapers. Critics weighed in from as far away as Los Angeles and the spat is documented in the award-winning film "The Art of the Steal," which galvanized much of the opposition.
With the opening of the new building, the battle over the move is largely over, if not forgotten. Minor points still play themselves out in court and at a media preview on Wednesday a handful of protesters stood outside.
Each gallery in the new building is a nearly exact replica of those at the former building, located about five miles away in a leafy Philadelphia suburb, and most visitors will have a hard time telling the difference.
Replicating the galleries was done to placate opponents and to satisfy the requirements of Barnes' will, which stated "all paintings shall remain in exactly the places they are at the time of the death of (Barnes)."
What's changed is that those galleries are housed in a building nearly eight times the size. Classrooms or gardens sit between the galleries.
"I think we've made a serene container for an amazing collection," said Billie Tsien, an architect on the project. While the old building relied on shades to block natural light and prevent damage to paintings, the new building gets more natural light. That visible difference has led many art aficionados to mistakenly believe the paintings have been cleaned.
"You can see the paintings in a light that gives more life to them," Tsien said.
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