A MONTH ago seasoned watchers of Syria reckoned that the regime's ferocious crackdown would keep the lid on dissent, albeit with President Bashar Assad's legitimacy badly impaired. Now the prevailing wisdom is changing. Rather than subside, the protests are spreading and intensifying. Having started in the south and spread to coastal cities such as Banias, they moved to Homs, Syria's third-biggest city, and the surrounding central districts. More recently they have gripped Hama, the country's fourth city, famed for its uprising in 1982, when 20,000 people may have been killed by the then president, Hafez Assad, the present incumbent's father. After starting in the rural areas, the unrest has hit cities all over the country. And the death toll, well past 1,200, has begun to rise more sharply. On June 3rd, at least 70 people are reported to have been killed in Hama alone.

The first of two big questions is whether the revolt will get going in Damascus and Aleppo, the capital and Syria's second city respectively, which have been relatively but by no means entirely quiet. The second big question is whether the security forces, on which the regime was founded when Assad père took over in 1970, will stay loyal. If the army's middle and lower ranks, drawn mainly from the country's Sunni majority, which comprises some 75% of the population, begin to turn against the senior ranks where the Alawite minority (10%, including the Assad family) predominates, the regime could begin to fall apart. The events of June 5th in the town of Jisr al-Shughour, near the north-western border with Turkey, suggest that this may be starting to happen.

An accurate version of what happened there is hard to confirm, because independent reporters are banned from Syria and the state media have plumbed the depths of mendacity. Usually, however, they flag up an event and give an indication, sometimes unintentionally, of its magnitude. Then they set about rearranging the facts. In the case of Jisr al-Shughour, they at first said that 20 members of the security forces had been killed in an ambush “by armed gangs” and then, within an hour, raised the figure to 120, declaring that “decisive” action would be taken as part of the state's duty to protect its citizens. Probably the death toll has indeed been high.

But who killed whom remains unclear. Theories abound. Residents say people have been fighting back after helicopters and tanks killed at least 40 civilians during the weekend. Tanks have been massing menacingly around the city. But well-informed Syrians surmise that the number of dead servicemen was exaggerated in an effort to make ordinary people rally to the regime and that most of the victims were killed in clashes between the police and the army or within some security-force units after their members tried to defect or to mutiny—the last two possibilities being the ones that must really scare Mr Assad.

The killing in Hama on Friday June 3rd was also a watershed. Many thousands went onto the streets, to be met by a volley of gunfire. The unrest continues to spread. Idleb, the province around Jisr al-Shughour, is up in arms. Homs is still boiling. Deir ez-Zor, in the remote east, is seething too. Thousands of protesters have poured onto the streets. Security forces have been burning their fields. People are terrified they will be the next victims of the crackdown.

Eyes are now turning on Damascus and Aleppo. The uprising has hitherto been fiercest in rural areas. During the Baath party's early days in power in the 1960s, its officials were often rural types who sought support for the Baath's socialism from poor villagers. But Mr Assad has neglected those roots, favouring urbanites, including merchants and religious leaders. The villagers, by contrast, have suffered from bad conditions, drought, rampant unemployment, and the corruption and bullying of state officials.

Damascus has not, in any case, been completely quiet. Angry protests have taken place in Kafr Souseh and are continuing in Midan, districts in the heart of the city, and there have been many small protests. Aleppo, haunted by a crackdown against Islamists in the 1980s and still heavily policed, may be the last city where people will take to the streets en masse. But unrest is growing there too.

Across the country, a growing number of religious leaders are weighing in behind the protesters. More of Syria's minorities, such as Christians, who have looked to Mr Assad for protection, may also be joining in. The several hundred thousand Palestinians who reside in Syria may also be turning against him (see article). On June 6th there were clashes in Yarmouk, the biggest refugee camp, on the edge of Damascus. “We're getting to a tipping point, where groups waiting for a balance of power to change will move,” says a veteran analyst in Damascus. The influential Qatar-based television channel, Al Jazeera, reported that a member of the Tlass family, a Sunni clan that has been close to the president, had defected. He contradicted the government's line that the army is fighting against armed rebels.

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At first Western governments, including America's, were loth to call for Mr Assad to go, hoping he could still set about reforms and open Syria up. But his exceptionally brutal use of force has alienated those who had hoped to embrace him. The French government has declared his rule “illegitimate”. The language of a draft resolution being circulated by Britain and France at the UN is hardening. The Russians and Chinese are still reluctant to let a resolution pass—but may consider abstaining, as they did over Libya, if Mr Assad plainly starts to lose his grip. On every front, he is looking weaker.