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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she had sent a report to Congress saying the network met the criteria as a terror group.
She said the US would continue "diplomatic, military and intelligence pressure on the network".
The US has long described the Haqqani group as a major threat.
The network - which has links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban - has carried out a series of high-profile attacks against foreign troops in Afghanistan.
The designation will ban companies and individuals in the US from supporting the group and freeze any US assets it may have.
State department officials said the formal designation would be made in the coming days.
"Today, I have sent a report to Congress saying that the Haqqani network meets the statutory criteria of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) for designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO)," said Mrs Clinton, who is currently attending an Apec (Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation) summit in Vladivostok, Russia.
"We also continue our robust campaign of diplomatic, military and intelligence pressure on the network, demonstrating the United States's resolve to degrade the organisation's ability to execute violent attacks."
Mrs Clinton added that she was taking the action "in the context of our overall strategy in Afghanistan" following policy laid out by US President Barack Obama when he visited Afghanistan in May.
The Pentagon said the Haqqani network "represents a significant threat to US national security and we will continue our aggressive military action against this threat".
"These new group designations will build on our efforts to degrade the network's capacity to carry out attacks, including affecting fundraising abilities, targeting them with our military and intelligence resources, and pressing Pakistan to take action," said George Little, the acting Assistant Secretary of Defence for Public Affairs.
Hostage fears In response to the US move, senior commanders of the Haqqani network told Reuters news agency that the decision showed the US was not sincere about peace efforts in Afghanistan.
They also said the move would "bring hardship" for US army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, 25, who has been held prisoner for more than three years.
The Haqqanis also hold numerous Western, Pakistani and Afghan hostages as well as kidnap-for-ransom victims.
The US has been putting pressure on Pakistan to launch a ground offensive in North Waziristan, where the Haqqanis are based, but Pakistan is reluctant.
The BBC's Jill McGivering says that any such offensive would probably be focused on disrupting the Pakistani Taliban - an internal threat - and not on attacking the Haqqanis, whose battleground is Afghanistan.
The US fears that Islamabad sees the Haqqanis as potential allies after Nato's withdrawal from Afghanistan, she says.
Last year, US Admiral Mike Mullen, former head of the US military, said the Haqqani network had become a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
Analysts say this prompted suggestions that a designation against the Haqqanis would indirectly be branding Pakistan a terrorist state.
In Washington, the White House has also been under political pressure from Congress to add the Haqqanis to the country's terrorist blacklist.
Congress had set Mrs Clinton a deadline of this weekend to deliver her report.
Meanwhile, the US has been disrupting the group, targeting leaders in drone attacks.
Last month, an air strike in North Waziristan was reported to have killed a key Haqqani commander, Badruddin Haqqani.
He had been described as a senior operational commander, masterminding and directing attacks on high-profile targets.
Correspondents say he was also responsible for training camps and for extorting funds from contractors.

More than 730 people were injured after the quakes hit Yunnan and Guizhou provinces on Friday, state media say.
The tremors struck mostly mountainous areas, causing landslides that blocked some roads.
The US Geological Survey registered the two strongest of the quakes at 5.6 magnitude.
Premier Wen Jiabao is expected to arrive in the area shortly.
Tents dispatched China's Xinhua news agency quoted officials in Yunnan as saying 6,650 houses had been destroyed in the province and 430,000 others damaged.
More than 100,000 people have already been evacuated, said Xinhua, and the Red Cross has sent 650 tents and 3,000 quilts to the region.
The authorities have deployed the army to assist rescue teams in the rough terrain.
"Roads are blocked and rescuers have to climb the mountains to reach hard-hit villages," Li Fuchun, head of Yunnan's Luozehe town, was quoted as saying.
Mobile and regular phone service in the area was experiencing disruption, according to reports.
Most of the deaths were in Yunnan's Yiliang county, said officials.
Television footage from state-run broadcaster CCTV showed hundreds of local residents gathering on streets littered with bricks and rocks.
Users of the Twitter-like wesbite Weibo reported people rushing out of shaking office buildings, and photos posted online also showed streets strewn with rubble.
Aid agencies said they were concerned about the plight of children in the two provinces following the quakes.
"We are especially worried about those who may have been separated from their parents, as more aftershocks are expected to hit the area," Save the Children in China Country Director Pia MacRae said.
The largest of the quakes was also felt in the neighbouring province of Sichuan, where a 7.8 magnitude quake in 2008 left tens of thousands dead.

Both men appeared in Iowa and New Hampshire on the first full day after the end of the party conventions.
Mr Obama conceded that the unemployment figures were "not good enough", while Mr Romney said the president's policies had failed.
The two men are neck-and-neck in the polls two months from election day.
Mr Obama's hope for a poll boost after the three-day Democratic convention, which finishing in North Carolina on Thursday night, faced a challenge from the latest set of weak economic data.
Friday's report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed 96,000 jobs were added in August, fewer than expected. The unemployment rate fell from 8.3% to 8.1%, but only because more people gave up looking for work.
'He tried'
The two men spent Friday campaigning in the swing states of Iowa and New Hampshire, with the president in New Hampshire in the morning before holding an evening rally in Iowa.
Mr Romney did the reverse, making his first appearance of the day in Sioux City, Iowa, before ending his Friday in Nashua, New Hampshire.
"That's not good enough," Mr Obama told a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, talking about the jobs report. "We know it's not good enough.
"We need to create more jobs faster. We need to fill the hole left by this recession faster."
Mr Romney kept up his campaign's focus on lambasting the president's handling of the economy, pouncing on the jobs figures
"This president tried but he didn't understand what it takes to make our economy work. I do."
On financial news broadcaster CNBC, Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan said: "This is not even close to what a recovery looks like."
Mr Obama is campaigning in the key swing states of New Hampshire and Iowa on Friday, joined by First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden and his wife.
The Romney campaign released a glut of 15 anti-Obama ads on Friday as part of a reported $4.5m (£3m) broadcast campaign in eight swing states.
The ads - subtly tailored for each broadcast market - are scheduled to run in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.
Correspondents say the selection of eight states gives a clear signal about where the Romney campaign will direct its energy during the two-month campaign.
Eastwood's chair explanation In Mr Obama's Thursday night convention speech he offered a string of critiques of Republican policies, while emphasising there was no quick fix for the nation's problems.
"When you pick up that ballot to vote - you will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation," he said.
"Over the next few years, big decisions will be made in Washington: on jobs and the economy; taxes and deficits; energy and education; war and peace - decisions that will have a huge impact on our lives and our children's lives for decades to come."
Also on Friday, Clint Eastwood broke his silence about what inspired his bizarre speech at the Republican convention last week, when he spoke to an empty chair that he said represented Mr Obama.
He told his California hometown newspaper the Carmel Pine Cone that he noticed the seat while waiting backstage to speak.
"When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea," he said. "I'll just put the stool out there and I'll talk to Mr Obama and ask him why he didn't keep all of the promises he made to everybody."
Eastwood said the Romney campaign had asked for details of what he was going to say, but he told them: "You can't do that with me, because I don't know what I'm going to say."

The boy's classmates saw the gun in his bag and reported it to the school authorities, who alerted the police.
The weapon, which was reportedly loaded, was confiscated and police raided the boy's home.
There they found the weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
The local authorities said they had found a powerful rifle (AR15) at the dining table and in one of the bedrooms, 13,000 rounds of ammunition, pistols and assault rifles, bulletproof vests and two money-counting machines.
Several high-calibre cartridges capable of penetrating body armour - so-called "cop-killers" - were also discovered.
In addition, the police confiscated military uniforms, portable radios and three vehicles, two of them armoured.
A police spokesman said a woman, thought to be the boy's mother, had been arrested at the house but that a man had managed to escape.
The boy was taken into the care of social workers.
This episode is further evidence of the damaging effects the country's violent drug war is having on young people, the BBC's Will Grant in Mexico reports.
Lobby groups have called on the authorities to do more to protect children from falling under the control of the powerful drug gangs, our correspondent says.
One local non-governmental organisation, he adds, has urged parents to routinely check their children's rucksacks for weapons, to help improve security in schools.

A number of children are among the dead. There were no reports of casualties among Isaf troops.
An attacker on a motorbike blew himself up near the entrance, an Isaf spokeswoman told Reuters news agency.
Kabul security has been tightened as supporters of an anti-Taliban warlord mark 11 years since his assassination.
Ahmad Shah Massoud - a hero of the 1980s war against Soviet occupiers, and later of opposition to the Taliban - was killed by al-Qaeda suicide bombers on 9 September 2001.
Following Saturday's explosion, the Isaf HQ at Camp Eggers, which is home to some 2,500 personnel, was placed "on lockdown", the Isaf spokeswoman said.
'Child hawkers' Afghan police confirmed a suicide bomber had struck.
Child street hawkers are believed to have been caught in the blast and witnesses quoted by Reuters said small bodies could be seen being carried to ambulances.
A police official speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP news agency: "Most of the victims are young children who gather around Isaf to sell small items to soldiers leaving or getting into the base."
The US embassy, the Italian embassy and the presidential palace are also located near the site of the attack.
A Taliban spokesman named Zabihullah Mujahid said the militant group had carried out the attack, targeting US intelligence.
Scores of dignitaries are due to attend commemorations of Massoud's death in Kabul on Saturday, which is a national public holiday in his honour.

French prosecutor Eric Maillaud said British and French officers would enter the home of Iraq-born Saad al-Hilli, 50, in Claygate, Surrey.
Brother Zaid al-Hilli has denied a family dispute over money, which is one line of inquiry in the investigation.
Relatives of Mr al-Hilli's two young daughters, who survived Wednesday's attack, have arrived in France.
The girls, aged seven and four, are believed to be the only witnesses to the killings, carried out near the popular tourist destination of Lake Annecy, and are under police protection.
Three police officers from France are thought to have arrived in the UK already to investigate the shootings, and a fourth officer is due to arrive later.
The most senior of the four, Colonel Marc de Tarle, who heads the National Gendarmerie Criminal Affairs Bureau, was the first to arrive.
Mr Maillaud said French officers would interview Mr al-Hilli's brother in the UK as a "witness".
Franco-British inquiry Surrey Police said they were helping French authorities to carry out a "complex" investigation.
The BBC understands the family home was originally owned by Saad al-Hilli's parents and later left to him by his mother in her will.
Police plan to search the house as part of efforts to gather background information about Mr al-Hilli.
Mr Maillaud said: "Up until now the police in Britain were guaranteeing the safety of the house but now it's a Franco-British inquiry that is starting and we can now enter the house of Mr al-Hilli."
Mr al-Hilli's wife, Iqbal, and a woman thought to be his 74-year-old mother-in-law, were killed during the attack.
The fourth victim, a cyclist whose body was found near the car after apparently stumbling across the attack, has been named as 45-year-old Sylvain Mollier.
Mr Maillaud said four-year-old daughter Zeena al-Hilli - who spent eight hours hiding in the car with the bodies before being found by officers - had identified her family and described the "fury" and "terror" of the attack to French police.
The child said she was between her mother and the older woman - who have not yet been officially named - and hid under her mother's skirt when the shooting started.
The older sister, Zainab, is in a medically-induced coma in Grenoble University Hospital after being shot once and suffering head injuries.
She was found by a British cyclist who discovered the murder scene and alerted the authorities.
Vehicle sightings The BBC's Mark Lowen, in Annecy, said: "Prosecutors hope that if she recovers, she may provide the key to what happened here in this tranquil corner of France, and who is to blame."
Relatives of the girls arrived in France on Friday night, accompanied by a British social worker, and were due to meet Zeena later, Mr Maillaud said.
"I don't know when they will be able to see the little girl. We have to be sure it can be done without problems," he told AFP news agency.
During a press conference on Friday, the prosecutor confirmed that each of the victims had at least one bullet in the head, and about 25 shots were fired in total - more than originally thought.
This has led investigators to believe that more than one gun was used in the killings.
They are looking into reports of a green or dark-coloured four-wheel drive vehicle and a motorcycle, apparently seen by the cyclist who discovered the murder scene. But Mr Maillaud pointed out that such vehicles were common during the tourist season in a mountainous region.

She said the government was working closely with the US Congress to get the necessary legislation passed.
Mrs Clinton was speaking ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit in Vladivostok.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged a fight against protectionism to turn the global economy around.
And Chinese President Hu Jintao promised his country would try to help the world's economy by increasing the demand in China for imported goods.
'Bridges not walls' Although Russia is now a member of the World Trade Organisation, there is still a piece of legislation that prevents US companies trading normally with Russia - the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment which, although suspended, remains in place.
She added: "To make sure our companies get to compete here in Russia, we are working closely with the United States Congress to terminate the application to Jackson-Vanik to Russia and grant Russia permanent normalised trade relations.
"We hope that the Congress will act on this important piece of legislation this month."
However there are concerns in the US Congress about Moscow's support for Iran and Syria, as well as its broader human rights record, so the timing of a vote on the issue remains unclear.
Mr Putin, who is hosting the summit, expressed concern about the world economy, and particularly Europe's debt crisis.
"The priority goal is to fight protectionism in all its forms. It is important to build bridges not walls," he said.
President Hu said: "The world economy today is recovering slowly, and there are still some destabilising factors and uncertainties.
"The underlying impact of the international financial crisis is far from over.
"We will work to maintain the balance between keeping steady and robust growth, adjusting the economic structure and managing inflation expectations. We will boost domestic demand and maintain steady and robust growth as well as basic price stability."
Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has left the talks early to return home after her father died.

The ECB said it would buy bonds of the bloc's debt-ridden nations in a bid to bring down their borrowing costs.
The implied borrowing costs for Spain and Italy fell after the announcement.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 2.2%, Korea's Kospi gained 2.6% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 3.1%.
"We think this is a credible plan to addressing the issue, and while there are still political hurdles, we expect those will be addressed," said Alec Young, global equity strategist at S&P Equity Research.
'Ready to act'
That led to concerns that these nations would no longer be able to borrow money from international investors and, therefore, would not be able to repay their debts, further escalating the region's debt crisis.
Many investors feared such developments would not only hurt the eurozone's growth, but could also derail the global economic recovery.
That would have had a knock-on effect on Asia's export-dependent economies, which rely heavily on global demand.
However, the ECB's announcement, and the drop in borrowing costs of Spain and Italy thereafter, has helped allay those fears.
Markets in the US rose, with the Dow Jones index hitting it highest level in almost five years.
In Europe, Germany's Dax index closed 2.9% higher, while France's Cac 40 jumped 3% and the UK's FTSE 100 rose 2.1%.
"The markets were looking for a strong decisive action and a commitment from the central bank that they are ready to act if any issues blow up in the region's bigger economies," Justin Harper of IG Markets told the BBC.
"Last night they got that."
'Risk appetite'
The ECB announcement also provided a boost to the euro currency, which rose against the US dollar and the Japanese yen.
The euro was trading at $1.263 in Asian trading. It also rallied against the Japanese currency to 99.63 yen.
Analysts said that the ECB's plan had boosted investor morale and that they were more confident of investing in riskier assets.
"The ECB's actions afford time, allowing risk appetite to stage a comeback, for now," said Vincent Chaigneau, a strategist at Societe Generale.
However, they warned that while the ECB's plan had helped allay market fears, the crisis was far from over.
"Mr Draghi has won a battle, but cannot win the euro area crisis war by himself," Mr Chaigneau said.
"The hardest task of all - getting governments to drop posturing in return for leadership and deep reforms - still awaits us."

The move follows a series of incidents in which foreign troops have been killed by Afghan soldiers or policemen.
The suspension of training - which only applies to new ALP recruits - will allow US special operations forces to "re-vet" current ALP forces.
US special forces currently have around 1,000 Afghan local police trainees.
"While we have full trust and confidence in our Afghan partners, we believe this is a necessary step to validate our vetting process and ensure the quality indicative of Afghan local police," Col Thomas Collins, spokesperson for US forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement.
The suspension of training would be "temporary", according to Col Collins, adding: "Despite the recent rise in insider attacks, they are relatively rare among SOF [Special Operations Forces]-partnered forces."
An existing eight-step vetting programme will be made more rigorous, officials say.
The number of counter-intelligence teams will be increased and there will be greater vetting when Afghan soldiers return from leave.
Military guidelines on vetting have sometimes not been followed in the past for fear of slowing the growth of the Afghan security forces, officials told the Washington Post.
Operations by forces already trained would continue, as would the recruitment of new trainees, US Special Operations Forces spokesman Lt Col John Harrell told the Associated Press.
There are currently 16,380 members of the ALP.
The Afghan army and national police, trained by Nato, are unaffected by the suspension. The training of Afghan special forces will also continue.
On average, 7,000 Afghan soldiers and 3,700 Afghan police graduate from training every month.
The ALP is a relatively new force, introduced to improve security in some of the most remote parts of the country, the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul reports.
'Green-on-blue' attacks On Wednesday, three Australian soldiers were killed by a man in Afghan army uniform in Uruzgan province.
Some 45 coalition troops have died in more than 30 "green-on-blue" attacks this year, at least 15 of them in August alone.
The term refers to the colour-coding systems used by the US military - Nato forces are "blue" and Afghans are "green".
The Taliban has been actively recruiting members of the Afghan security forces, publicly announcing that insider attacks were a central part of their strategy against Nato forces.
Most of the victims of the green-on-blue attacks have been Americans.

The charges cannot be dismissed formally until the end of the inquiry, but prosecutors said all detained miners would be freed.
Local authorities used a controversial apartheid-era law to accuse the miners of provoking police to open fire.
Miners were demanding a huge pay rise and recognition of a new union.
The killings, at the Marikana mine, owned by Lonmin, shocked the nation.
State prosecutors charged 270 miners with murder under the "common purpose" doctrine.
The rule was used by the white-minority apartheid regime to crack down on its black opponents, and at the time was opposed by the now governing African National Congress.
'Machete threats' But he said in a statement earlier that he would not intervene in the case.
Acting national director of prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba held a news conference on Sunday to announce the charges would be scrapped.
"Final charges will only be made once all investigations have been completed," she said.
"The murder charges against the current 270 suspects will be formally withdrawn provisionally in court."
She said those whose addresses have been verified by police would be released on Monday, and the rest would remain in custody until their next court appearance on Thursday.
The BBC's Nomsa Maseko in Johannesburg says public anger, already high over the shootings, was exacerbated by the charges.
On Friday, Justice Minister Jeff Radebe said the charges had "induced a sense of shock, panic and confusion" in the public and demanded a report from state prosecutors to explain their rationale.
The 270 miners, six of whom remain in hospital, were arrested during the protests.
They were charged on Thursday, with the prosecutors arguing they were part of the crowd whose actions provoked the police into opening fire.
No police officers have been charged over the deaths because a judicial inquiry and an internal police review are under way, but these are expected to take several months to complete.
The strike turned violent before the police shooting, with the deaths of 10 people including two police officers and two security guards who were hacked to death.
The protests were triggered by demands for a huge pay rise and recognition of a new union.
Talks are continuing to resolve the dispute, which has shut the mine for the past three weeks.

(CNN) -- Myanmar's Ministry of Information announced Monday that it has ended pre-publication censorship, but it laid out a welter of strictures on free expression that remain in place.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- As Apple's stock rose to new high on Monday, the technology giant set another record: It became the most valuable public company in history.
Apple's market value -- the price of its stock multiplied by the number of outstanding shares -- hit $623 billion in intraday trading. That eclipsed the previous record of $618.9 billion set by Microsoft on Dec. 30, 1999, at the height of the dot-com bubble, according to Howard Silverblatt, S&P's senior index analyst.
Apple shares hit a new record of $664.74 per share. The anticipated September launch of the new iPhone, coupled with rumors of a smaller iPad and a more feature-rich Apple TV have lifted the stock in recent weeks.
It's a stunning achievement for a company that was a struggling also-ran when Microsoft was setting records in the late 1990s. Apple was valued at less than $10 billion as recently as 2004, and at $100 billion just three years ago.
Since 2007, however, Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) has been an unstoppable force. Its iPhone business alone now brings in more money than Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500). Even the iPad, which was intended to be a gap-filling product between the iPhone and the Macintosh, has itself become a multi-billion dollar product for Apple.
Apple is on pace to be the world's largest technology company in terms of sales by the end of the year, and it's among the most profitable companies in the world. In the last three months of 2011, Apple made $13 billion -- second only to ExxonMobil's (XOM, Fortune 500) record-setting $14.8 billion quarter from the fall of 2008, when oil prices were at an all-time high.
The company's lightning-quick growth shows no signs of subsiding. With rumors of new gadgets on the horizon, Apple has crossed the $400 billion, $500 billion and $600 billion marks -- all in 2012 -- as the stock has soared 64% this year.
Despite the fast growth, some say that the company is actually undervalued, since its stock gains haven't kept pace with its earnings. Trading at 15 times this year's earnings forecast, it has a price-to-earnings ratio far below that of some tech stocks, including Facebook (FB), Groupon (GRPN) and even Zynga (ZNGA), whose stock has plunged sharply.
Apple still has one last hurdle to climb: Microsoft still holds the record for most valuable company on the stock market if inflation is taken into account. In 2012 dollars, Microsoft's all-time-high would have amounted to $851 billion.
Apple has quite a way to go before it hits that mark. Its stock would have to reach $908 per share.

Lonmin said the Marikana mine reopened but no ore was produced after fewer than a third of staff turned up.
It also said a deadline for striking miners to return to work or face dismissal had been extended to Tuesday.
President Jacob Zuma declared a week of national mourning for those killed.
He has also called for a commission of inquiry to investigate the incident.
Memorial service "Lonmin can confirm that work at its Marikana operations resumed today as significant numbers of employees returned to work," the company said in a statement.
"Almost one third of the 28,000-strong workforce reported for their morning shifts.
"The company can also announce that those illegal strikers who did not return to work this morning will not be dismissed and have been allowed an extra day in light of current circumstances."
Later, Lonmin executive vice-president for mining Mark Munroe said that "for all intents and purposes" no ore had been produced at the mine on Monday.
"By 07:00 tomorrow (05:00 GMT) we expect workers to return to work. After that, Lonmin has the right to fire them," he said.
"We are aware that it will take some time for some trust to be regained," he added.
Union officials quoted by Reuters said that at least 80% of the workforce was needed to bring platinum out of the shafts.
The BBC's Nomsa Maseko in Johannesburg says it remains to be seen whether more workers will report for duty on Tuesday.
A significant number have vowed to prolong their stay-away, saying that returning to work would be an insult to their dead colleagues, she adds.
The week of mourning began on Monday and a memorial service is planned for Thursday.
About 3,000 rock-drill operators (RDOs) walked out more than a week ago in support of demands for higher pay.
The strike was declared illegal by Lonmin, the world's third-largest platinum producer, and the mine was shut.
Clashes between strikers, some holding clubs and machetes, and police culminated on Thursday when officers armed with automatic rifles and pistols fired dozens of shots.
In addition to those killed, at least 78 people were injured and some 250 people were arrested.
Those arrested were remanded in custody by a court in the Pretoria township of Ga-Rankuwa on Monday. Charges included murder, public violence and attempted robbery.
During the hearings, about 100 women appeared outside the court to appeal for leniency for the men.
While union leaders held meetings on Monday, about 1,000 workers gathered near the mine said they would not return.
Several accused Lonmin of insensitivity for expecting them to go back to work while they were still in mourning.
"They can fire us if they want, we are not going back to work. [President] Zuma must shut down that mine," one worker told AFP news agency.
Correspondents at the scene said workers outside the mine were unarmed and in a calmer mood than on previous occasions.
The miners, who are currently earning between 4,000 and 5,000 rand ($484-$605) a month, say they want their salary increased to 12,500 rand ($1,512).

Lakhdar Brahimi told the BBC that he was "not in a position to say yet" but was "committed to finding a solution".
Mr Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister, last week succeeded Kofi Annan, who resigned after both sides largely ignored his peace plan.
On Sunday, UN observers ended their mission to verify its implementation.
Their departure came after the UN Security Council agreed to allow their mandate to expire at midnight, and instead set up a new civilian office in Damascus to pursue political contacts which might lead to peace.
Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said his country is struggling to cope with the influx of refugees from Syria.
Mr Davutoglu again proposed that the UN establish a safe zone inside Syria to house those fleeing the conflict because Turkey would be unable to accommodate more than 100,000 people. To date, 70,000 have fled there, most within the past month.
Syrian opposition groups have also called for safe havens, but the idea has gain little traction internationally, with Russia and China opposed.
'Mediator' Since being confirmed as the new UN and Arab League envoy to Syria, Mr Brahimi has acknowledged that he has no concrete ideas of how to end the conflict in Syria, which he believes has been a civil war for some time.
On Monday, he told the BBC that he was not ready to say whether President Assad should step down despite widespread international condemnation of his government's crackdown on dissent since protests erupted in March 2011.
"I am not in a position to say yet, because I was appointed a couple of days ago. I am going to New York for the first time to see the people who I am going to work for, and I am going to Cairo see the Arab League," he explained.
After announcing his resignation, Mr Brahimi's predecessor, Kofi Annan, said: "It is clear that President Bashar al-Assad must leave office."
The main opposition coalition, the Syrian National Council (SNC), said Mr Brahimi's stance showed "disregard for the blood of the Syrian people and their right of self-determination" and demanded he apologise.
"Whoever gives this criminal regime an opportunity to kill tens of thousands more Syrians and destroy what is left of Syria does not want to recognise the extent of the tragedy," an SNC statement said.
Mr Brahimi stressed that he was "committed to finding a solution full stop".
"I am a mediator. I haven't joined any Syrian party. I am a mediator and a mediator has to speak to anybody and everybody without influence or interest," he added.
"Then I'll make up my mind about what to say and what to do."
'Shellfire' On the ground in Syria, seven UN vehicles drove out of the capital on Monday morning, carrying some of the last members of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), all of whom are expected to leave the country by the end of the week.
As they departed, government forces were trying to retake the Damascus suburb of Muadhamiya from rebel fighters, opposition activists said. One report said seven people had been killed by shellfire.
The UK-based opposition activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said fighting in the southern city of Deraa had left 15 people dead, including two children.
Shelling by tanks and warplanes also caused houses to collapse in the northern city of Aleppo, killing at least 14 people, activist Mohammed Saeed told the Associated Press. The buildings were in the Sakhour and Qadi Askar districts, he said.
Between 80 and 130 people were reportedly killed across the country on Sunday despite the start of Eid al-Fitr, the three-day holiday that celebrates the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
The UN says more than 18,000 people have been killed in the conflict, 170,000 have fled Syria and 2.5 million need aid within the country.

The fire began in the early hours of Saturday and has been fuelled by gale force winds.
Authorities said that by Monday the blaze had destroyed about 7,000 hectares (16,000 acres) of forest and farmland.
Residents of nine villages and hamlets were evacuated from their homes over the weekend as the fire approached.
Chios lies north-east of the capital, Athens, off the coast of Turkey.
Strong winds The island is famous for its production of mastic, a natural, gum-like resin with a distinctive flavour produced only by trees on certain sections of the island.
Used as a natural chewing gum, a cooking spice and for pharmaceutical and cooking purposes, mastic resin is a major source of income for the islanders.
The strong winds were hampering efforts to extinguish the fires, despite the presence of several hundred firefighters, soldiers and volunteers, as well as firefighting planes and helicopters.
Wildfires are common during Greece's long, hot summers, though some are believed to be started on purpose.
A further five forest and brush fires broke out on Monday across Greece, the Associated Press news agency reports, while fire crews continued to fight six fires already burning in other parts of the country.
The government has requested the assistance of water-bombing aircraft from Spain and Italy to help with the summer blazes.

Todd Akin, who is also running as Republican candidate for the Senate, made the comments in a TV interview to explain his strict views on abortion.
He later said he had "misspoken" but his Democratic rival said the comments were "beyond comprehension".
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he disagreed with the view.
During the interview for KTVI-TV, Mr Akin was asked about his no-exceptions view on abortion, a highly charged issue in the US, and on whether he would like abortion to be banned even if the pregnancy was the result of rape.
He replied: "It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that is really rare.
"If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.
"But let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child."
'Flat-out astonishing' The interview has sparked a furious reaction in the US, with critics attacking both Mr Akin's scientific view and his reference to "legitimate rape".
Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill said it was "beyond comprehension that someone can be so ignorant about the emotional and physical trauma brought on by rape".
"The ideas that Todd Akin has expressed about the serious crime of rape and the impact on its victims are offensive."
Ms McCaskill, who is trailing Mr Akin in opinion polls for the Missouri seat, said on Twitter that as a former prosecutor she had personally handled hundreds of rape cases.
On blogs and Twitter, users have also poured scorn on his biological view, and expressed concern that he is a member of the House Committee on Science.
Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, told AP radio that the comments were "flat-out astonishing" and that such language was "intended to shame women".
A spokesman for Mr Romney said that both the candidate and his running mate, Paul Ryan, disagreed with Mr Akin, and stressed that "a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape".
Mr Akin later issued a statement saying he had "misspoken" in his "off the cuff" remarks, though did not specify on which points.
He said the interview "does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year".
Mr Akin also reconfirmed that he "believes deeply in the protection of all life and I do not believe that harming another innocent victim is the right course of action".
The six-term congressman for Missouri is a long-time vocal opponent of relaxing abortion laws.
In 2011, he co-sponsored a controversial bill that would have limited the government help available to women seeking abortions in the case of rape to cases of "forcible rape".
After a public outcry, the House Republican party was made to change this language.

But Mike Norton, professor at Harvard Business School, and I decided to take a different path and we decided to ask people what inequality they would want.
Now, there are lots of ways to ask this question and we used the philosopher John Rawls.
Rawls said that "a just society is a society that if you knew everything about it, you'd be willing to enter it in a random place". And it's really a beautiful definition.
He called it a veil of ignorance, because if you're very wealthy, you might want the wealthy people to have lots of money and the poor to have very little; and if you are very poor, you might want the poor to have more money and the wealthy to have less.
But in Rawls' definition, you don't know where you'll end up, you have to consider all the different options and therefore you have to think about what is good for society as a whole.
Incomprehension So, we took the American society and we asked people to imagine it divided into five buckets, the wealthiest 20%, the next 20%, the next, the next and the poorest 20%.
First of all, we asked people: how much wealth do you think is concentrated in each of those buckets?
It turns out people get it very wrong.
And people don't understand it. They don't understand how much wealth the top have and in particular, they don't understand how little the bottom has.
But then we described to people Rawls' definition, the veil of ignorance, and the idea they could end up anywhere. And we said: What society would you like to create? How much wealth? How would you like to distribute the wealth?
And it turns out people created a society that is much more equal than any society on Earth. It was much more equal than Sweden.
Blind tasting In fact, when we did this experiment another way and we showed people two distributions of wealth, one based on the wealth distribution in the US and the other based on the wealth distribution that is more equal than Sweden, 92% of Americans picked the improved Swedish distribution.
So this suggests to me that when people take a step away from their own position and their own current state, and when people look at society in general terms, in abstract terms, Americans want a much more equal society.
There is one more interesting thing to this: 93% of Democrats picked the improved Swedish model, compared with 90.5% of Republicans. Different, but not very different.
And all this makes me wonder, how can it be that in our studies people seem to want such equal society but when you look at the political ideology, people don't seem to want that?
And I think it is a little bit like blind tasting of wine.
When you taste wine and you know the label and you know the price, you are going to be influenced by that. And when you are tasting wine in a blind way, now you don't have anything to base it on and you have to really use your senses.
I think the same thing happens with thoughts about just societies. When we are in the regular world, we are using our current position, our ideology and the labels that politicians give us, and they obscure reality and obscure what we really want.
But Rawls' definition really lets us strip all this away, lets us focus on what is really important and how people actually want something very different from what we have.
The question, of course, is how do we get people to think about this to a higher degree and how do we get them to act on that for a better future?

Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said Mr Hijab had not yet appeared in person and he rejected reports of other ministerial defections.
Meanwhile, Iran's security chief has made an unexpected visit to Damascus in an apparent step change in diplomacy.
Tehran says it is planning a conference aimed at solving the Syrian crisis.
The staunchest regional ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Tehran is also trying to secure the release of a group of Iranians abducted by rebels from a bus in Damascus on Saturday.
'US held responsible' An unconfirmed report from the rebels has suggested that three of the 48 hostages they are holding have been killed by army shelling.
Saeed Jalili, who heads Iran's supreme national security council and is considered a senior aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was meeting Bashar al-Assad and several other top officials.
It also emerged that Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was travelling to Turkey for talks in Ankara.
Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian has said it holds the US responsible for the hostages' safety.
He said the US was supporting "terrorist groups" and despatching weapons to Syria, and was therefore responsible for the lives of those abducted.
The rebels have claimed that the group are members of the Revolutionary Guard. Tehran says they are pilgrims who had been heading for a Shia religious site.
'Business as usual' Caretaker Prime Minister Omar Ghalawanji headed an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday, stressing that all the ministers were there. He was due to chair a further session on Tuesday.
Opposition activists said that apart from the prime minister, two other ministers had also defected and a third - Finance Minister Mohammad Jalilati - was arrested as he tried to escape.
But footage of the cabinet on state TV showed two of the ministers who had supposedly defected and Syria's information minister played down the significance of Mr Hijab's departure.
"We haven't heard anything from the former prime minister and he didn't appear on TV," Omran al-Zoubi was quoted as saying by Syrian state news agency Sana.
Syria was a state of institutions, the information minister said, and the flight of some of its individuals would not affect the state, however prominent they were.
But reports of defections have continued, with Turkey's foreign ministry announcing on its Twitter feed that a general was among more than 1,300 refugees who fled across the border overnight.
The number of Syrians who have crossed into Turkey has risen to 47,500, Ankara says.
'Safe location' Riad Hijab, appointed as prime minister less than two months ago, is the most prominent Syrian figure to defect so far.
Although his whereabouts are unclear, his spokesman appeared on al-Jazeera TV in neighbouring Jordan saying that the prime minister had fled Syria with his family and was in "a safe location".
"I have defected from the terrorist, murderous regime and [am] joining the holy revolution," ran Mr Hijab's statement read by his spokesman Mohammed el-Etri.
France said the Assad government was "doomed" and White House spokesman Jay Carney said such high-level defections signalled that President Assad's grip on power was "loosening".
On the ground in Syria, clashes have been reported in Aleppo and the army is said to have stepped up its bombardment of the northern city.
Government forces are trying to dislodge rebel fighters who have taken control of up to half of Aleppo.
Opposition activists report intense attacks on rebel-held areas on the north-east and south-west sides of the city.
State media said troops had clashed with "terrorists" in several places inflicting heavy losses.
Further deaths were reported in Damascus on Tuesday. Syrian agency Sana said a "terrorist hideout" had been stormed by security forces.
British-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 270 people were killed across Syria on Monday. It said 61 civilians died in Aleppo province alone.
Activists estimate more than 20,000 people have died since the uprising against President Assad began in March last year.
Reports of casualties often cannot be independently verified as the movement of foreign journalists is severely restricted in Syria.

Net profit was 290bn yen ($3.7bn; £2.4bn) in the April to June period, up from 1.1bn yen a year earlier.
Toyota's sales plunged in the same period last year, after it was forced to suspend production due to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
Toyota said its sales in Japan rose by 81.6% compared with a year earlier.
Revenues in North America rose by 86.6%.
Japan's largest carmaker said: "increases in both production volume and vehicle unit sales and cost reduction efforts", had contributed to the jump in profits.
The carmaker kept its forecast for annual net profit unchanged at 760bn yen.
The yen factor Analysts said that while the numbers were better than expected, Toyota continued to face challenges in the near term, not least from a strong currency.
This not only makes Japanese cars more expensive to foreign buyers, but also dents profits when Toyota converts its overseas earnings into yen.
Koji Endo, an auto analyst with Advanced Research Japan in Tokyo told the BBC a lot of the parts that are used by Toyota's factories in other countries were also exported from Japan.
He explained that a strong yen made those parts more expensive and further hurt the firm's earnings.
Mr Endo warned that as the yen remained strong against most global currencies, "the impact on profits will be bigger than previously expected".
Tax breaks One of the key factors behind the increase in car sales in Japan has been the incentives being offered by the government on eco-friendly vehicles in a bid to boost the country's car industry.
Japan has reintroduced a scheme giving a subsidy of up to 100,000 yen per car on such vehicles.
However, the scheme has a limit of 300bn yen and will expire once that amount is reached.
Most analysts expect the scheme to end within the next few months and say that it may have a big impact on the sales of Japanese carmakers.
"Tax incentives are expected to expire anytime in the near future and sales may nose dive as a result," warned Mr Endo.

Rebels fired rocket launchers on an army post in Hakkari province just after midnight, NTV in Turkey said.
Turkish military jets are pursuing them and bombing their escape routes, NTV said.
Several thousand Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels are believed to be based in hideouts in northern Iraq.
According to the governor for Hakkari province, Orhan Alimoglu, six soldiers, two village guards and 11 Kurdish rebels were killed in the attack near the village of Gecimili.
He said 15 soldiers were injured in the incident.
The number of clashes between the PKK and the Turkish armed forces has risen in southeast Turkey over the past year.
A series of clashes in June left dozens dead.
The PKK is classified as a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US.
It launched a guerrilla campaign in 1984 for an ethnic homeland in the Kurdish heartland in the south-east of Turkey.
It has now dropped its claim to an independent Kurdish state, but says it is fighting for autonomy and the cultural rights of the Kurdish people.

However, the unemployment rate rose from 8.2% to 8.3% last month, as more people re-entered the workforce but failed to find a job.
The US Department of Labor also said 6,000 fewer jobs were created in May and June than first estimated.
The US economy has to generate 100,000 new jobs a month just to stand still, according to the Federal Reserve.
The total number of unemployed people was 12.8 million last month, unchanged from June.
Private sector firms hired an extra 172,000 staff, which more than offset the 9,000 fall in government payrolls.
"We are not seeing large-scale layoffs, so job destruction is pretty limited," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates.
There were also signs that Americans were optimistic about finding a job. The number of discouraged workers - people not looking for work because they believe there are no jobs - fell 267,000 to 852,000.
The number of involuntary part-time workers, those whose hours have been cut back or who could not find full-time jobs, was unchanged at 8.2 million.
Candidates for the November presidential election have been watching the jobs reports closely, as the economy remains a top voter concern.
President Barack Obama said: "Let's acknowledge, we've still got too many folks out of work. We've got more work to do on their behalf."
The White House's chair of economic advisers, Alan Krueger, said: "Any increase in the unemployment rate is unwelcome but we do see an economy that is continuing to add jobs."
He added that the private sector had added jobs for 29 months in a row, for a total of 4.5 million.
But Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney described the slight increase in US unemployment to 8.3% from 8.2% last month as "a hammer blow to struggling middle-class families", as he said his jobs plan would add 12 million new jobs by the end of his first term.
Mr Romney went on to criticise the president's policies, saying "This is an extraordinary record of failure."
Last week, official data showed the US economy grew at an annual rate of 1.5% in the second three months of the year, that was slower than the 2% pace at the start of 2012.
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve said its programme to reduce long-term borrowing costs for firms and households would continue for the rest of the year.
Under Operation Twist, the Fed buys long-term bonds from retail lenders and swaps them for shorter-term bonds.
But it disappointed some investors by not announcing any fresh measures to stimulate economic growth.
The Fed has kept base interest rates at close to zero for nearly four years and pumped $2.3bn into the economy.