Syria's uprising

EID AL-ADHA, the Islamic festival commemorating Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son, has been bloodier than usual in Syria. This year, eight months into an uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad, more than twenty people were killed on Sunday November 6th, the first day of the holiday. After an assault by government forces, the authorities are taking control of Baba Amr, a neighbourhood of Homs where defectors had put up stiff resistance to regime forces. Those in the area describe it as a "humanitarian disaster zone".

Last week Syrian and Arab officials announced that Syria had agreed to an Arab League initiative to end the violence. This included pulling the army and security forces out of residential areas, allowing League representatives and foreign media into the country, releasing detainees and opening some kind of dialogue with the opposition within 15 days.

Hopes were not high from the outset. The Syrian regime has shown little interest in a political solution until now. As  the killings and arrests continue, those hopes are falling still further. The largely toothless group of 22 Arab states has tried to bridge the widening gap between the regime and its opponents to end the violence in the past, to no avail. The latest plan leaves many questions unanswered, not least how it will be implemented and monitored. But with the costs of the conflict rising for both sides, Syrians on all sides of the political spectrum saw the initiative as a last chance at a political exit.

"We need to say ok to it and put the ball in the regime's court," says one of the few veteran dissidents left in Damascus. "No-one in the opposition really believes it will work, but if not, we are being left with one scenario only—an armed struggle."

Some civilians now are buying weapons and being trained by defectors from the army. Violence is spreading from Homs, the city that has become the heart of the uprising, and Idleb province, in the north-west, to restless towns around Damascus and Hama. Meanwhile, protesters are getting frustrated with the Syrian National Council. The umbrella opposition group, whose head, a professor in France Burhan Ghalioun, gave his first address on the eve of Eid, has yet to show any guidance or address the increased violence perpetrated by defectors and the few civilians now fighting. Protesters are increasingly calling for international help, seeing no other solution to their predicament.

"It looks like we now are on the verge of a paradigm change," says Peter Harling of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based lobby. "If protesters feel there is no other option, they may resort to weapons, which would blur the lines and reinforce the regime's narrative, based on labelling the protest movement an insurgency." That seems ever more probable as time goes on.

Syria-watchers say the regime feels increasingly confident at home, but is concerned by external pressure. Mr Assad and his allies may not have much to fear, however. The Arab League is holding an emergency meeting on Saturday. Some think that the failure of the League's initiative may force Russia and China to abstain in a UN Security Council vote. But with opposition to any decisive action strong within both the League and the UN, nothing more than feeble condemnation is likely.