Antigovernment protesters on the streets of Dara'a, Syria
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Dozens of amateur videos attest to that possibility. Many are seeping out of the closed, authoritarian state, some reportedly smuggled out of the border near Dara'a through neighboring Jordan. One purportedly filmed in Dara'a shows three lifeless bodies in the middle of a rainy street as a man who appears to be injured struggles to rise. Gunfire crackles. The muddy thoroughfare is stained by blotches of blood that turn a few puddles red. Men hurriedly carry away the corpses before the footage zooms into extreme closeups of several blood-streaked, inanimate faces, their eyes open. In another, security forces, both in plainclothes and uniformed, stream out of several buses, weapons at the ready. Even as the buses are emptying, the security personnel are dragging men toward the vehicles.
"They are fighting us as if we are a foreign enemy. Hundreds of snipers are all over the city," a man who identified himself as a resident of Dara'a told al-Arabiya, the Arabic satellite channel, on Thursday. "Through your screen, I want to tell human-rights organizations, international organizations, that what is happening is a massacre, crimes against humanity. The people just asked for their freedom — it is their right." The caller, who gave his name as Ali, scoffed at Assad's quick dismissal of the local governor for his heavy-handed response to the protesters, saying the governor was just a "minor official." Ali continued: "Every Syrian knows that orders come directly from the President or from his brother. Nobody else can make these decisions."
In Damascus, Shaaban, the presidential aide, insisted that Assad did not give the order to use bullets against his people. "This does not refute the fact that there were some mistakes or some actions that were not satisfactory," Shaaban said. "All legitimate demands will be met, but in a calm way."
But calm did not appear to be anywhere near Dara'a. Late into Thursday evening, a dissident website was issuing an urgent plea to the people of the city to donate blood to the hospital. More than 20 people were in the morgue, it said, and some 60 had been wounded on Thursday. "Many are in critical condition," it read. In one particularly graphic amateur video, a young shirtless man lies on a couch, a deep gaping wound in his upper left arm. "Mourad, don't look, don't look!" a voice off-camera tells the man, as he looks away from his arm. "Take it easy, he needs a doctor! Take it easy, Mourad, take it easy!"
Syria's President has taken a tentative step toward listening to his people, but will it be enough to assuage the anger on the streets? Will it be enough for those apparently wounded by the forces of their "reformist" President? Friday will provide a crucial answer.