The White House said for the first time on Thursday that the regime had used chemical weapons, notably sarin gas, on multiple occasions against the opposition – crossing what it has described as a red line.
The issue of Syria topped the agenda of an hour-long pre-summit videoconference on Friday between Obama and the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Italy.
“They discussed the situation in Syria and how G8 countries should all agree to work on together a political transition to end the conflict,” a Downing Street spokeswoman said.
Officials said Washington would increase military support to the rebels, a move welcomed by Britain and France who successfully pushed for a lifting of the EU arms embargo on Syria last month.
Damascus rejected the US accusations as “lies”, while Moscow, a key player due to its long-standing support for Assad, said they were “unconvincing” and hurt efforts to make peace.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was to meet Cameron in London for pre-summit talks on Sunday and then hold a bilateral meeting with Obama in Belfast on Monday.
The US and Russian leaders will kick-start the G8 discussions on Syria, which British officials hope will get all parties in the conflict closer to the negotiating table.
Moscow and Washington have jointly proposed a peace conference in Geneva, building on a similar meeting last year, but no date has yet been set.
Cameron said he wanted G8 summits to “get back to a fireside chat” in which leaders sit together “without a lot of advisers and without a lot of communiques, addressing problems of the world that they want to do something about”.
“International gatherings are worthwhile, if they are done in the right way. The trouble is too many of them are about long communiques with endless textual arguments,” he told The Guardian newspaper.
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