Few close observers of the Syrian conflict believe the uprising that began nearly a year ago is anything like over, and nor do they believe that President Bashar al-Assad can use the siege of Homs as a springboard to regain full control of the country.
Syrian troops entered the ruins of Baba Amro, the rebel enclave in Homs that succumbed to month of artillery and tank bombardment, amid loyalist claims that Assad had broken the back of a Western-sponsored terror campaign against his government.
Yet some experts believe the authorities' brutality will lead to a drawn-out Bosnia-style war as well as the further militarisation of a conflict that began as a civil uprising inspired by revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.
"The Syrian regime has won one battle in a war it is not guaranteed to win," said Nabil Boumonsef, a columnist at Beirut's an-Nahar newspaper. "It took the Syrian forces one month of siege to enable them to enter Baba Amro district – this is not a sweeping military victory."
"The opposition will continue. They will not rest or forgive or turn back," Boumonsef said.
REBELS TO SEEK HEAVY WEAPONS
It was always clear that superior loyalist forces could overcome the lightly armed Free Syrian Army, made up of army defectors and rebels who have taken up arms. Human rights groups and activists say that between 700 and 1,000 civilians may have perished in Baba Amro, the worst single toll of the conflict.
The regime's unremitting use of force against Baba Amro – "flattening the neighbourhood on its inhabitants" in the words of Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East Director at Human Rights Watch – is unlikely to end the uprising but will likely further radicalise Syrian society.
While the Assad narrative is that government forces are acting to protect local communities against armed gangs and Islamist terrorists, they are in fact inflicting collective punishments on areas that have supported the uprising.
Neither side is likely to change strategy. The government will use military might to force the opposition into submission and the Free Syrian Army, so far relying on smuggled weapons, will seek foreign sources of heavy weapons, funds and fighters.
One tactic the rebels might use is suicide bomb attacks against government symbols similar to those carried out by al-Qaeda in Iraq.
There are reports that Arab Islamist fighters joined rebels in Baba Amro and other strongholds and that more could arrive.
LIKE FATHER LIKE SON
The Assads, for their part – in particular Maher al-Assad, Bashar's younger brother and military enforcer – are seen as capable of committing another Homs or even a Hama, where forces loyal to Assad's father Hafez and his brother Rifa'at, killed up to 20,000 people to crush an Islamist uprising in 1982.
But despite the militarisation of the conflict and the erosion of state authority, Assad retains the loyalty of the military, political and security establishment, and is unlikely to be overthrown in the short term.
Defections from the army are likely to increase but there are no signs of a split in the military leadership, and the opposition remains divided and dysfunctional.
LONG BATTLE
The Syrian National Council, the main opposition body, has not been able to provide strong leadership, devise a strategy to bring down the Assads, or set up a transitional administration for a post-Assad era.
But the number of loyal units Assad can depend on is limited to the 4th armoured division and the republican guard, solidly Alawite and commanded by Maher al-Assad. The rest of the army is commanded by Alawites and loyalists but the rank and file is Sunni and the growing number of defections shows that the authorities cannot rely on them against Sunni opposition.
A political solution is seen as out of the question. Assad's reforms so far have been criticised as superficial, inadequate and too late.
With Russia and China vetoing any Security Council resolution on Syria, the conflict could turn out to be protracted and grisly, like Bosnia, eventually sucking in the international community.
The conflict has already reignited historical animosity between Sunnis and Shi'ites, from which the Alawites derive, and is raising fears that Sunni Islamists will seize power, as they are in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, eventually tipping the balance against Assad and his regional allies in Iran and Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah movement.
