BEIRUT, Lebanon — United Nations officials said Tuesday that as many as 10,000 residents of a Palestinian refugee neighborhood in the Syrian port city of Latakia had fled during a four-day assault, as security forces carried out more arrests and intimidation in what residents said was a government attempt to rebuild a wall of fear in one of Syria’s largest cities.

Latakia, on the country’s Mediterranean coast, is the third locale to bear the full brunt of military and security forces this month, though the government has also persisted in its crackdown on the suburbs of Damascus and Homs, the third-largest city. The violence has provoked international condemnations that have grown sharper, but still stopped short of demanding that President Bashar al-Assad step down.

On Tuesday in Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said it was more effective to forge international consensus against Mr. Assad — as well as intensify economic pressure through sanctions — than for the United States alone to lead the way.

“It’s not going to be any news if the United States says Assad needs to go,” Mrs. Clinton said at the National Defense University. “O.K., fine, what’s next? If Turkey says it, if King Abdullah says it, if other people say it, there is no way the Assad regime can ignore it.”