The 6-month-old uprising in Syria against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad appears to be moving into a more dangerous phase as dissident groups arm themselves for the first time and the military retaliates with overwhelming firepower.

"With no prospect of meaningful national dialogue in sight, the conflict now appears to be shifting into a new, infinitely more hazardous phase: the weaponization of the revolution," observed Simon Tisdall, foreign affairs analyst of The Guardian of London.

"Syria is moving inexorably from Arab Spring to an ever darker, dangerous winter of discontent."

The regime, dominated by minority Alawite Muslims, has been able to hold out since clashes began March 15 because it has a form grip on the military and the all-pervasive and widely hated security and intelligence services.

But there's been a discernible increase in defections from the military in recent weeks. Hundreds of soldiers, mainly from the Sunni majority, are said to be refusing orders to fire on protesters and join the demonstrations.

To be sure, these are largely conscripts rather than Alawite stalwarts and there's been no mass desertion by companies or battalions. But the defectors are organizing themselves into units that could become the nucleus of a revolutionary army.

They are overwhelmingly outgunned by Assad's forces, including the elite all-Alawite Republican Guard commanded by the president's younger brother Maher, the 4th armored division and a brutal paramilitary force of Alawite gunmen and thugs known as the Shabiba, or ghosts.

But there have been reports in recent days of deserters and other armed groups have started using rocket-propelled grenade launchers against the Soviet-era tanks the army uses to hammer cities and towns where dissidents challenge the regime.

For months, the protesters took to the streets unarmed to face the guns of the regime. By U.N. count, more than 2,700 have been killed with thousands more wounded.

Uncounted thousands have been swept up in mass roundups and thrown into prisons to be tortured.

The regime has long claimed that the uprising is run by "outside powers" and "terrorists."

It's highly likely that outlawed groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni organization decimated by Assad's late father in the 1980s when it challenged his iron rule, are active.

But it's been clear the protest movement was so diffuse that opposition leaders were only recently able to get together in Turkey to form a leadership council to try to give the revolution some cohesion.

Iran is actively aiding the Damascus regime, its only Arab ally through which it has access to the Levant and its most prized proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran's vanguard against Israel.

Undoubtedly, Saudi Arabia, the United States and others, particularly Turkey, have agents in Syria but they don't appear to be directly involved in the revolution.

However, the regime has too many enemies now and even after a half-year of hurling its vast military and security apparatus against unarmed demonstrators who refuse to be cowed it has failed to crush its opponents.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Assad's strongest supporter, a couple of weeks ago publicly advised Assad to halt the violent crackdown. That was widely seen as a crack in Tehran's backing for Damascus.

"Turkish policy appears petrified by the turmoil on its southern flank. Saudi Arabia and Israel, though no friends of Assad, value stability above all else, while Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon have maintained their support of Damascus, despite misgivings," Tisdall noted.

But if the complexion of the conflict changes, with minorities like the Kurds, with their warrior history and decades of discrimination by Damascus, the Druse and the Christian groups becoming involved against the regime then these powers may decide to take a hand.

The revolutionaries must have realized that their peaceful protests have won them nothing but promises from Assad to introduce political and economic reforms that may never be kept.

For Assad and the Alawite minority, which comprises around 10 percent of Syria's 22 million people, to surrender power is tantamount to suicide.

Armed resistance would thus be the next step and with it the danger that Syria, a fragile mosaic of religious and ethnic groups, would be plunged into sectarian bloodshed that could easily spread to neighboring Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon.

There are many old scores that have to be settled.

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