Thousands of protesters defied a ferocious crackdown and returned to the streets on Friday, even in towns that the military had besieged only days before. But the protests seemed incapable of mustering a critical mass — as they did in Egypt and Tunisia — and, at least anecdotally, the number of demonstrators appeared to be smaller than in past weeks.
The government said it had subdued some of the most restive locales — namely Baniyas on the Mediterranean coast and Dara’a in the south — after deploying tanks and soldiers and arresting thousands. In the face of growing international condemnation and a reeling economy, though, it offered at least the facade of compromise, saying it would begin what it called a national dialogue next week.
Some dissidents in Damascus, Syria’s capital, described a deadlock in a conflict that has already shown the weakness of both the government and the opposition, dangerously exacerbated sectarian tensions in a country still struggling to forge a national identity and perhaps sown the seeds of an armed rebellion in rural regions knit by clan loyalties.
“We don’t know where we’re going,” said Louay Hussein, a prominent dissident who has met with a government adviser in a tentative dialogue that began last week. “We don’t know what’s next. If the crackdown is still in place by the end of next week, then we’re headed toward a disaster, and it will be almost impossible to overcome it.”
The death toll on Friday — six, according to human rights activists — paled before past weeks, a reflection of either government restraint or, more likely, the inability of protesters to cross red lines that the government has declared on successive Fridays. Demonstrators from the outskirts of Damascus did not try to march on the capital, a symbol of government prestige, nor were they able to gather in central locations in cities like Homs, Syria’s third largest and a center of the uprising.
“The main thing we wanted to show the world with the protest is that we haven’t stopped, that we’re not asleep and that we’ve broken the barrier of fear,” said Abu Haidar, a resident reached by phone who took part in the demonstration in Homs.
By all accounts, the protesters showed that. Even though they could not converge in the city’s center, demonstrators still gathered in five neighborhoods, despite a withering assault this week in which tanks shelled residential areas and black-clad security forces arrested so many people that they had to detain them in soccer fields. At least three people were reported killed before the protests ended in the late afternoon.
“We don’t like you! We don’t like you!” crowds chanted there, denouncing Mr. Assad in a fashion unheard of months ago. “You and your party, leave us!”
Residents fleeing to the Lebanese border spoke of clashes erupting in Homs and the hinterland this week, with men taking up arms to defend themselves.
Demonstrations were reported in at least eight towns and villages in the region around Dara’a, which is known as the Houran and is famous for its wheat and vineyards. That protests erupted even in towns like Hara, where tanks entered this week and several people were killed, suggested that the region, devastated by drought and populated by extended clans, was so restive as to be in revolt. One person was reported killed there.
Larger protests convened in towns and cities in eastern Syria, populated by ethnic Kurds. At least three small groups of protesters gathered in Damascus itself, but were quickly broken up by security forces that, in at least one locale, outnumbered marchers.
“People still have the will to demonstrate, but the security forces were prepared for us,” said one of the protesters in Damascus. “They were waiting.”
Katherine Zoepf contributed reporting from New York, and Hwaida Saad and employees of The New York Times from Beirut and Damascus, Syria.
