Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's tight grip over his country once made even the suggestion of a revolution seem impossible, but the steadily growing anti-regime protests have begun to echo those in other parts of the Arab world.
On Friday, 7,000 anti-government protesters took to the streets of the cities of Homs, Aleppo, Deir al-Zor and Daraa, as well as the capital, Damascus, where demonstrators gathered at the famous Umayyad Mosque in the old city.
It was the first large-scale demonstration of its kind, as the uprisings and unrest that spread from Tunisia to Egypt to Bahrain and Libya appear to have reached Syria, one of the most tightly controlled societies in the Middle East.
They chanted "Freedom Freedom," "God Is Great," "No To Corruption" and "Peaceful, Peaceful." At least five demonstrators were killed in clashes with police in Daraa on Friday, witnesses said, with dozens more injured.
On Saturday, the mourners chanted, "We want freedom," as tribes in Daraa warned of violence if security troops were not withdrawn.
The government-controlled media has kept a tight lid on the widening protests, which have become a daily occurrence in Damascus, Aleppo and Daraa since Monday. But witness accounts and videos posted on Syrian opposition websites and Facebook tell another story.
In a rare interview in January, Assad told the Wall Street Journal that the popular revolts in the Arab world were ushering in a "new era" in the Middle East.
"If you didn't see the need of reform before what happened in Egypt and Tunisia, it's too late," Assad said, acknowledging that Arab leaders needed to do more to make room for their people's rising aspirations. But he also questioned whether this was "going to be a new era toward more chaos or more institutionalisation? The end is not clear yet."
Assad, 45, and his late father, Hafez al-Assad, have run Syria for nearly 40 years. In the interview, he said Syria was stable, and that his people would give the government more time to implement reforms.
But he acknowledged that political reform in Syria hadn't moved forward as quickly as he had thought after coming to power in 1999. Syria has a draconian emergency law that allows for arrest without charge, a one-party political system and a government- controlled media.
Syrian opposition figures and human rights activists critical of the regime have long been targeted by security forces, jailed and tortured. Dozens of activists have been arrested at anti-government rallies this year. Criticising the regime or calling for greater freedoms and human rights can result in lengthy prison sentences in Syria. According to witnesses in Damascus, the government is using security forces and army troops to disperse the protesters.
"They even used helicopters on Friday in Daraa to drop security troops and army personal near the protesters in a show of force," one opposition source, who requested anonymity, told dpa in Beirut.
He said that witnesses who were present at the demonstration in Daraa on Friday told him that "they saw at least four bodies (of protesters) lying on the streets." The protesters have so far not been calling for overthrowing the regime of Assad family, but instead are focusing on demanding "freedom," and that "the Syrian people do not like to live as oppressed."
The opposition source said the Syrian government was swift on Friday in issuing an official statement for the first time to justify to the world the force used against the demonstrators.
"People set cars and shops on fire, which obliged security forces to intervene in order to protect citizens and property," the source quoted the statement as saying. Despite strict government control, the opposition has begun to find its voice, the source said. "Facebook has been used and will continue to rally the masses," he said.
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