ZIAD, Ammar and Zakaria are all Syrian, but 29 months into a civil war their once-similar home towns now look as if they belong to three different countries. Ziad is from Tartus, a north-western port city covered in posters showing President Bashar Assad. Ammar’s home town in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor is run by rebels. In Zakaria’s birthplace in the north-east, schoolchildren learn Kurdish, banned until recently, rather than Arabic, the national language.

Syria is gradually breaking into three. The forces of Mr Assad recently seized the initiative but they cannot defeat the opposition and instead are consolidating their grip on the western spine of the country. From Damascus and Homs to Hama and Latakia, the regime is carving out a coastal state. Meanwhile, the rebels are doing the same in the Euphrates valley stretching from Turkey to Iraq through open desert. On July 22nd they took over Khan al-Asal, a town close to Aleppo, a divided northern city. As extreme Islamists among the rebels gain in strength, rumours abound that al-Qaeda-related groups will declare a religious state. Already, they fly black flags above mini-emirates.

Further east, long-persecuted Kurdish groups are using the chaos of the civil war to create an autonomous region. Last week the Democratic Union Party, the Syrian branch of Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), announced a constitution and a plan to elect a council to administer the area known as Rojava or west Kurdistan. Exactly a year ago they took over policing the area and in early July they kicked out jihadists from the border town of Ras al-Ain.

Frontlines are hardening, even if rebel regions still contain regime-held cities. A de facto three-way partition is under way. The opposition’s foreign backers, mainly in the Gulf, may not be as generous as Mr Assad’s allies: Iran, Russia and Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shia party-cum-militia. Yet the rebels continue to fight vigorously. Weapons still trickle in. The regime would find it very difficult to take back areas run by jihadists, even though it is getting better at fending off the opposition in disputed regions. The National Defence Force, a paramilitary outfit trained by Iran, provides backup for the army. Defections have slowed since the end of 2012.

The sense of stalemate was underlined by General Martin Dempsey, America’s most senior officer. On July 22nd he laid out options for intervening in Syria, most of them difficult. He said a no-fly zone would cost $1 billion per month and could drag America into full-scale war. America’s plan to provide light arms, with the aim of uniting moderate rebel groups, has yet to start. “Planning is still in ridiculously early stages, the who, where, what, when,” says an analyst in Washington.

Syria as a country has ceased to exist. Different parts of it apply different legal systems, ranging from old national laws to sharia or no law at all. Economies are localised and reliant on new business linked to the war. Different flags fly over administrative buildings—where they still exist.