TEL AVIV — On a wide beach in Tel Aviv, I recently watched two Israeli men — wearing tight neon bathing suits that would make many Americans blush — play a game of paddle ball. They impressively smashed their serves and volleys with decisive forehands and backhands and dove in the sand to make saves.

A few feet away, a couple of young women in skimpy bikinis with tattoos on their ankles and shoulders stretched into yoga positions in the shade of a wooden gazebo.

You can buy ice cream and cold beer on the beach and nobody seems to litter.

If Tel Aviv’s beachfront sounds like a island of paradise in the midst of the turbulent Middle East — that’s because it is. And Israeli officials intend to keep it that way.

While the chaos unleashed by the Arab Spring continues to reverberate across the region, Israel, a small country the size of New Jersey, has been busily building about 500 miles of fence, walls and barricades to keep the surrounding Arab world out.

Keeping a lid on Gaza
Just 45 miles south of the paddle ball players in neon, Hamas runs the Gaza Strip, the narrow Palestinian territory squeezed between Egypt and Israel. 

Hamas is a Palestinian political party with an aggressive militant wing. At its rallies, Hamas supporters routinely chant that one day they will destroy Israel and that Palestinians will return to their homes where Jews now live. Hamas has long been Israel's enemy, but in the wake of the Arab Spring, the group is empowered like never before.

Just last November, Hamas and Israel fought a brief war. Hamas launched rockets at southern Israel, and for the first time in the group’s history, at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Many of the rockets were shot down by Israel’s U.S.-funded Iron Dome missile defense system.

More than 150 Palestinians and at least six Israelis were killed in the fighting. But Hamas walked away with significant political recognition. 

Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi sent his prime minister to Gaza during the fighting to show solidarity with Hamas. That would never have happened under former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. 

Mubarak didn’t trust Hamas and kept them weak. In fact, during the previous, and far more severe, Gaza-Israel war in early 2009, Mubarak effectively helped Israel target Hamas by cutting off its border, denying escape and resupply routes. 

Nir Elias / Reuters, file

Israeli soldiers watch as an Iron Dome launcher fires an interceptor rocket near the southern city of Beersheba on November 17, 2012 .

But ever since the Arab Spring reset the Middle East and unleashed anti-Israel passions that Arab strongmen — like Mubarak — once kept at bay, Israel feels threatened. And they are fortifying their defenses.

Gaza tunnel
Now getting in and out of the Gaza Strip is increasingly difficult and bizarre.   

When you exit Israel, you must first pass through a series of metal detectors and X-ray machines, before entering a long Israeli-controlled tunnel.

The tunnel is above ground, fenced in on both sides, and with a wire roof. It runs along the ground like a metal snake. It's about 20 feet wide and stretches for about a mile with a dog-leg turn in the middle. There are cement blocks in the tunnel so you can’t drive a car through it. You have to walk, dragging your bags. It feels like you’re passing through a wormhole from a beach community into a prison. 

Making the tunnel stranger still is its quiet loneliness. There aren’t any Israeli guards or officers in the tunnel. As you walk with your bags, every few hundred yards you come to a closed gate. A camera and microphone over the gate turn on as you approach. You call out to an unseen guard that you’d like to advance and, if he approves, the gate clicks open and you move to the next barrier.

Egypt fence
Beyond Gaza, about 100 miles to the southeast of the gazebos shading women on Tel Aviv’s beach, is Israel’s border with Egypt. For decades, the border was protected naturally by the bare and jagged Sinai Mountains and the open desert.  

Moshe Milner / Israeli government via EPA, file

A photograph supplied by the Israeli Government Press Office in January 2013 shows a panoramic view of some of the border fence Israel has completed separating Israel from Egypt.

But now with Mubarak gone, a metal snake is going up along the Egyptian border, too.  

Israel is building a 150 mile fence along the Egyptian border. It’s nearly finished — with only 6.2 miles left to go.

The fence has two layers, is 20 feet high and is topped with razor wire. It also plunges several feet under the sand, so you can’t dig underneath it. Israel clearly doesn’t feel the mountains and desert offer enough protection anymore.

The Wall
Back on the beach in Tel Aviv, few people talk about their increasingly hostile neighbors in Gaza and Egypt, or the fences that keep them out. But other barriers are even closer.

Marko Djurica / Reuters, file

A Palestinian rides a bicycle past a mural on the controversial Israeli barrier depicting the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, at Qalandiya checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah on November 26, 2012.

Just 40 miles east of Tel Aviv, a giant wall cuts off the West Bank — the landlocked Palestinian territory surrounded on three sides by Israel, and one side by Jordan. Palestinians call it the "apartheid wall" because it keeps them penned in. Israel built the wall during a spate of Hamas suicide attacks and since its construction the number of bombings in Israel has plummeted.

Keeping Syria out, too
About 100 miles north of the Tel Aviv, a new fence is going up along the border with Syria. Only about 10 miles of that barrier, which looks just like the one with Egypt, is finished. The rest is going up fast.

As I walked along the new fence with Syria with our cameraman and producer a few days ago, we were stopped by a group of Israeli border guards who politely told us to leave. 

Atef Safadi / EPA

Israeli employees work on the new border fence at the Israeli-Syrian border, south of the Golan Heights, in Israel, on March 8, 2013.

The border guards, based on a hill overlooking the fence, told me they had seen fighting between Syrian government troops and rebels just a few hundred yards away from their base. The chief of staff of the Israeli military said at a conference this month that he believes it’s only a matter of time before armed factions in Syria turn their attention to Israel.

"We see terror organizations that are increasingly gaining footholds in the territory and they are fighting against Assad. Guess what? We’ll be next in line," said Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz.

'Fear index' down
As Israel waits for the political storm in the Arab world to pass, it has become a fortress nation, what some experts call a "garrison state." 

Perhaps it’s human nature, but living in a bubble has some advantages. Fences and walls can be effective and even soothing, at least for those who build them.

Slideshow: Israel and Gaza: 8 days of violence

Oliver Weiken / EPA

Israel's military said it had accomplished its objectives while Hamas claimed victory after the two sides exchanged deadly airstrikes and rocket attacks for over a week.

Launch slideshow

A study by Haifa University’s National Security Center published this month in the Israel newspaper Haaretz said Israelis have never felt more secure in their borders. The so-called annual "fear index” is at an all-time low. 

"People in Israel are simply optimistic. As a result of a hundred years of Zionism that met with difficult challenges, the public's conceptions are that we have overcome that, and that we will overcome it in the future," Prof. Gabriel Ben-Dor, the director of the study, told Haaretz.

But there’s twist. Israel’s Arab citizens, who may be more in touch with the profound changes in the region that they watch unfolding on Arabic-language television, were far less convinced about Israel’s security than Jewish respondents to the survey.

"It is possible the Arab population is seriously and intensively following what is happening across the border, and they judge the situation differently," said Ben-Dor.

The Israeli military is certainly aware that things have changed for Israel.

But that apparently hasn’t sunk in for most Israelis, or, just like people on the beaches of Tel Aviv, perhaps they don’t want to think about it.

Related:

Obama says 'there is still time' to find diplomatic solution to Iran nuke dispute; Netanyahu hints at impatience

Rough ride ahead for Obama as Palestinians, Israelis lukewarm over visit

'Suffocating in the streets': Chemical weapons attack reported in Syria

U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said Thursday that intelligence about Syrian chemical weapons "raises serious concerns" that the regime of Bashar Assad may use them against the country's own citizens.

"The whole world is watching, the whole world is watching very closely," Panetta said. "And the president of the United States has made it very clear, there will be consequences — there will be consequences if the Assad regime makes the terrible mistake by using these chemical weapons on their own people."

His comments came a day after U.S. officials told NBC News that the Syrian military had loaded the precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into aerial bombs that could be dropped from dozens of fighter-bombers. The defense chief, who was speaking at a news conference at the Department of Veterans Affairs, would not elaborate on what the potential consequences would be. 

A member of the regime in Damascus, however, dismissed the assertions Thursday, saying he feared the United States and other Western powers could be trying to find a "pretext for intervention" in Syria's civil war, Reuters reported.

Sarin is an extraordinarily lethal agent. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces killed 5,000 Kurds with a single sarin attack on Halabja in 1988.

Assad's deputy foreign minister Faisal Maqdad said Thursday that they would never kill Syrians with chemical weapons, dismissing the Western intelligence reports as "theater."

"Syria stresses again, for the tenth, the hundredth time, that if we had such weapons, they would not be used against its people. We would not commit suicide," Maqdad said, according a Reuters report that cited his comments on Lebanon's Al Manar television, the voice of the pro-Assad Hezbollah movement.

"In fact, we fear a conspiracy ... by the United States and some European states, which might have supplied such weapons to terrorist organizations in Syria, in order to claim later that Syria is the one that used these weapons," he added.

"We fear there is a conspiracy to provide a pretext for any subsequent interventions in Syria by these countries that are increasing pressure on Syria," he said.

Aref Hretani / Reuters

Children run along a street damaged by what activists said was a Syrian Air Force airstrike in the Aleppo district of Salaheddine on Wednesday.

Panetta echos Obama 'red line' warning
"The intelligence we have raises serious concerns"  that Damascus was considering using chemical weapons, Panetta said Thursday.

"Without commenting on the specific intelligence ... we remain very concerned, very concerned that as the opposition advances, in particular on Damascus, that the regime might very well consider the use of chemical weapons." 

Obama and other NATO leaders have warned that using chemical weapons would cross a red line and have consequences, which they have not specified.

Four U.S. Senators on Thursday urged President Obama to send a strong message to Assad.

"We urge the President of the United States to make whatever military preparations are necessary to show Assad that the United States is fully willing and able to impose the consequences that he has spoken of in the event these weapons are used," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), speaking first. "For deterrence to work it must be based on a credible threat."

He appeared with Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.).

"We are all saying to President Obama, who has stated that there will be drastic consequences for Assad and his government if they use chemical and biological weapons, we’re with you," said Lieberman. "There’s strong support across Congress if the president takes the strong action that’s necessary to prevent a very, very — historically horrific — humanitarian disaster in Syria. 

There are limited options for military intervention by the United States in Syria. It has one of the most robust air defense systems in the world — supplied by key ally Russia — but one option could be sending cruise missiles to attack regime targets.

Germany's cabinet approved stationing Patriot anti-missile batteries on Turkey's border with Syria, a step requiring deployment of NATO troops that Syria fears could permit the imposition of a no-fly zone over its territory.

Slideshow: Syria uprising
Syria loads chemical weapons into bombs; military awaits Assad's order
Syria regime 'reeling, armed to the teeth' with chemical weapons
More weapons in Syria could trigger 'all-out war'

The 20-month-old battle between Assad and opposition forces has claimed more than 40,000 lives.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met in Dublin on Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and international Syria mediator Lakhdar Brahimi to try to restart a U.N. peace process for Syria. Prior to the meeting, she said she expected to raise the chemical weapons threat.

Watch World News videos on NBCNews.com

Clinton has said that in addition to the possible use of chemical bombs by "an increasingly desperate" Assad, Washington was concerned about the government losing control of such weapons to extreme Islamist armed groups among the rebel forces.

U.S. officials said Washington was considering blacklisting Jabhat al-Nusra, an influential rebel group accused by other rebels of indiscriminate tactics that has advocated an Islamic state in Syria and is suspected to have ties to al-Qaida.

In other developments reported by Reuters:

• Syrian state TV said a\n explosion in front of the Damascus headquarters of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent killed at least one person on Thursday.
• Activists said the army pummeled several eastern suburbs of Damascus, where the rebels are dominant, with artillery and mortar fire. The suburbs have been cut off from the city's water and electricity for weeks, rebels say, accusing the government of collective punishment.
• Rebels say they have surrounded an air base two-and-a-half miles from the center of Damascus, a fresh sign the battle is closing in on the Syrian capital.
• Rebels said they were battling soldiers on the road to Damascus International Airport, 12 miles out of the capital, where several airlines have canceled flights due to security concerns.

Maqdad, in his interview on Thursday, argued that reports of such advances were untrue. "What is sad is that foreign countries believe these repeated rumors," he said. Rebel and state claims about the military situation cannot be verified independently. But residents inside the capital say the sound of shelling on the outskirts has become a constant backdrop. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

• EXCLUSIVE: US behind Afghan 'insecurity,' Karzai says
• Sex mobs target Egypt's women
• Researchers: North America least likely region for terrorism
• Africa's lion population plummets, study finds
• North Korea pays tribute to Kim Jong Il's 'threadbare' parka
• ANALYSIS: Egyptians warn Morsi is no friend of US
• Bread and expired milk: School lunch scandal sparks outrage in China
• Experts: Antarctica, Greenland ice melting into sea

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Reuters

Debris lie near a building damaged by a jet's missile in Aleppo, Syria, on Oct. 23.

Syrian government forces killed at least 20 people on Tuesday when they shelled a bakery in a neighborhood under rebel control in the contested northern city of Aleppo, opposition activists said.

The dead included women and children, they said. Video footage, which could not be immediately verified, showed decapitated bodies amid scattered bread loaves.

Two shells hit the bakery, located in the eastern Hananu neighborhood, in the early afternoon, said Majd Nour, an opposition campaigner in Aleppo. Free Syrian Army fighters were guarding it at the time, he said.

Aleppo is Syria's biggest city and commercial hub. Rebels trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad launched an offensive to capture it last month and street fighting has taken place on a daily basis since then.

Shell lands in Turkey
Earlier in the day an anti-aircraft shell fired from Syria hit a health center across the border in Turkey's Hatay province but there were no immediate reports of injuries, CNN Turk television reported.

Turkey has bolstered its military presence along its 560-mile border with Syria and has been responding to gunfire and mortar shells hitting its territory from fighting between Syrian rebels and government forces.

Top 10 foreign policy issues facing a new president

The district governor's office said it had no immediate information on the incident.

Tension between the two neighbors, once close allies, is at its highest since Ankara turned against Assad last year over his violent crackdown on anti-government protests.

International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who ended a four-day visit to Damascus on Tuesday, has pushed for a ceasefire to mark the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, which starts on Friday, hoping for a respite from daily death tolls of around 150.

But he did not win a public commitment to a truce in his talks with Assad, and the rebels say there is little point to a ceasefire that cannot be monitored or enforced.

Report: Several killed in Damascus car bomb ahead of Syria truce talks

The Turkish military has fired on Syria 87 times, killing 12 Syrian soldiers and destroying several tanks in retaliation for Syrian shells and mortar bombs landing inside Turkey, the Turkish newspaper Milliyet reported on Saturday.

In Syria, fighting raged on Tuesday as rebels battled to seize an army base close to the main north-south highway. The rebels say its capture would be a big step toward creating a "safe zone" allowing them to focus on Assad's southern strongholds.

Battle for Wadi al-Deif
Assad is fighting an insurgency that grew out of protests 19 months ago and has escalated into a civil war in which 30,000 people have been killed. His overstretched army has lost swathes of territory and relies on air power to keep rebels at bay.

For two weeks Assad’s forces have been tied down, battling rebels in Wadi al-Deif, east of the town of Maarat al-Numan. If the town fell to rebels, who already control northern border crossings to Turkey, Assad would be dependent on a single land route - from the Mediterranean port of Latakia - to supply his forces fighting to win back Aleppo.

"The battle started 11 days ago. At first we sent small groups to liberate (the base) and we were surprised by the resistance the regime forces showed," said Lieutenant-Colonel Khaled Hmood, a former army officer who defected to fight Assad.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

Fabio Bucciarelli / AFP - Getty Images

A look back at the violence that has overtaken the country

Launch slideshow

"The regime is fighting fiercely. It seems that it doesn't care if it loses thousands of troops in order to keep its control over the compound."

Syrian opposition skeptical of 'feeble' ceasefire plan

Hmood said he believed around 400 soldiers were defending Wadi al-Deif - a group of barracks barely 500 yards from the Damascus-Aleppo road and backed by air power that Assad has deployed against rebels and residents of a nearby town.

The base may also be an important fuel depot, holding at least five million liters of kerosene in five underground bunkers, according to Hmood.

Anti-Assad activists say 40 civilians were killed in air strikes on the town last Thursday in one of the most intense air offensives of the Syrian conflict.

But its efforts to send military reinforcements have been repulsed by the besieging rebels. The last attempt on Sunday ended when four tanks were destroyed and the remnants of an army column had to pull back. "We have noticed that the best strategy is to hit its supply line. We have been harming the regime a lot by hitting the reinforcements it is sending."

The rebels still face challenges to take the base. Although they have acquired increasingly deadly arms, including artillery and anti-aircraft weapons, they have regularly complained that they have only limited supplies to keep up the fight.

Reuters contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Top 10 foreign policy issues facing a new president
• Castro: I'm so healthy I don't 'even remember what a headache is'
• Hate crimes increase, extreme right strengthens as Greece economy sinks
• Report: Several killed in Damascus car bomb ahead of Syria truce talks
• Source: No deal yet on US-Iran nuclear talks
• Video: Dutch art heist a 'significant loss,' museum says
• Kateri Tekakwitha named first Native American saint in Vatican ceremony
• Documents add to evidence of security fears before Benghazi attack
• Newlywed Afghan beheaded for her refusal to become prostitute

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Reuters

Turkish soldiers take strategic position at the Akcakale border gate in southern Sanliurfa province on Sunday.

News Analysis

SANLIURFA, Turkey – Monday was another day of cross-border violence and rising tension between Syria and Turkey.

It was also a day when Gov. Mitt Romney pledged that, if elected president, he’d change the course of events here.

Among other things, he wants to green-light heavy weapons to the Syrian rebels “who share our values” in order to “defeat the tanks, helicopters and fighter jets” of the Bashar Assad regime.

For its part, the Obama administration says it has refrained from supplying the rebels with weapons out of concern that they could end up in terrorist hands. 

Others say escalating the conflict with more weapons isn’t necessarily good news for ordinary Syrians who are struggling to live along the 600-mile border – or for the U.S., given the potential for a larger regional conflagration.

Romney: Risk of conflict higher in Mideast after Obama policies

On the border – but not safe
Mahmoud Soukman is a truck driver who transports goods between Syria and Turkey. Three weeks ago he left his truck and fled with his wife, 9-month-old daughter and the clothes on their backs, moving in with his mother and siblings on a small farm just inside Turkey.

But they don’t feel safe, on either side of the border.

Mortars and shells explode ominously, and often in the distance, as Syrian rebels and government troops fight over strategic swaths of Northern Syria in the ongoing civil war. And one mortar did land near the farm house. 

Meanwhile, the tit-for-tat border skirmishes between Turkey and Syria have already become routine. The Syrian Army landed a mortar again on Monday about 100 yards inside Turkey, with no casualties; and the Turks have been returning artillery fire at imprecise targets inside Syria.

Syrian President Assad’s regime offered a weak apology for the deaths of five Turkish civilians, killed last week by an allegedly errant shell. But Turkish government officials have become increasingly bellicose. On Monday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Turks to prepare for war, if necessary. 

Also on Monday, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said the "worst-case scenarios" were now playing out in Syria and Turkey would do everything necessary to protect itself.

"The worst-case scenarios are taking place right now in Syria ... Our government is in constant consultation with the Turkish military. Whatever is needed is being done immediately as you see, and it will continue to be done," Gul said.

"There will be a change, a transition sooner or later ... It is a must for the international community to take effective action before Syria turns into a bigger wreck and further blood is shed, that is our main wish," he told reporters in Ankara.

Near Soukman’s farm, we saw Turkish troops and armored personnel carriers beefing up the border, building sand berms that gave the ordinarily bucolic setting a front-line feel.

Turkey fires on Syria after another Syrian shell hits its terrority

‘Very volatile’
Some Middle East analysts see a potential tinderbox. “The situation is very volatile, very dangerous and has the potential to escalate into all-out war,” warned Professor Fawaz Gerges from the London School of Economics. 

What could happen if the rebels get the shoulder-held rocket launchers and anti-aircraft weapons they want?

One likely scenario, say some Middle East experts, is that the Kremlin will loosen its own under-reported restrictions and sell the Syrian government – which Russia considers a client state – the high-tech weapons that Assad has been clamoring for. 

If that were to happen, some say it has the potential to unleash an arms race – and an all-out war – on Turkey’s doorstep.

In that case, Gerges believes, just one mistake, one miscalculation, could trigger a regional war - or worse.

“If Turkey, a NATO member, is fed up and invades Syria, NATO would have no choice but to intervene in Syria. And you can bet that Iran would become involved, and this could quickly turn into a region-wide conflict between Turkey, NATO, Saudi Arabia and Qatar on the one hand, and Iran, Iraq, Hezbollah and Syria on the other.”

Luckily, this nightmare scenario can be avoided. In fact, both Russia and NATO (read: the U.S.) are using their considerable influence over Syria and Turkey, respectively, to keep tempers in check.

But Turkey is already bristling with almost 100,000 hungry Syrian refugees in camps on its border. And Assad is well aware that Turkey is largely spearheading the rebels’ fight against his regime, supplying their weapons and hosting the military wing of the opposition. 

If a Syrian warplane were taken down by well-armed rebels and crashed into a Turkish village on the border, killing dozens, the incident could be the match that ignites a conflagration. 

“You have the potential not only for a region-wide war, but also for international conflict as well,” said Gerges.

Slideshow: Behind Syrian rebel lines

Machine guns operated by motorcycle brakes? Get a glimpse at the rebels fighting against Assad's forces in Syria's mountainous Jabal al-Zawiya area.

Launch slideshow

Who are the Syrian rebels?

Political calculation
President Barack Obama has maintained that arming the rebels is a red line beyond which chaos could unfold, leaving the risk of an over-militarized Syria with a power vacuum – a kind of Libya on steroids.

There is also the added danger of “rogue rebels” – both al-Qaida and affiliated militants have already joined the rebels’ ranks – getting their hands on sophisticated weapons and turning them on us.

At least in his public statements, Romney doesn’t appear too concerned about either happening. Instead, he seems more focused on a victory by freedom-fighters over an evil Syrian regime. His camp says that more powerful and deadly weapons will be a game changer.  

From his precarious perch overlooking the border, Soukman, the refugee truck-driver, sees only dark days ahead.

“There’s no food or water in our village. You can die from hunger,” he said. “If the fighting doesn’t calm down, maybe we’ll be here for years.”

Jim Maceda is an NBC News Correspondent based in London currently on assignment on the Turkish-Syrian border. Reuters contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Debt-choked Greece aims to sell off islands, marinas, more
• Abu Hamza, 4 others tied to al-Qaida arrive in US
• New role for rescued bear cubs
• Americans travel to Pakistan to protest US drone strikes
• Court: Kenyans tortured by colonial regime can sue UK
• Tourists fined as Rome declares 'War on the Sandwich'
• Stay informed: Sign up for our newsletter

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Updated at 12:00 p.m. ET: Russia rebuffed President Barack Obama's threat of unilateral action against Syria Tuesday, as officials said 2,500 refugees fled across the border into Turkey in just 24 hours – one of the highest daily refugee flows of recent weeks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking after meeting China's top diplomat, said Moscow and Beijing were committed to "the need to strictly adhere to the norms of international law ... and not to allow their violation".

Obama draws 'red line' for Syria on chemical and biological weapons

Obama on Monday threatened "enormous consequences" if his Syrian counterpart used chemical or biological arms or even moved them in a menacing way.

The president used some of his strongest language yet to warn Assad not to use chemical or biological weapons – after Syria acknowledged for the first time that it had such weapons and could use them if foreign countries attacked it.

"We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is (if) we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized," he said. "That would change my calculus."

Syria 'ready to discuss' Assad's resignation, deputy PM says

"We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people," Obama said, perhaps referring to Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah group, an Iranian-backed ally of Assad, or to Islamist militants.

Turkey's foreign minister has warned it can accommodate no more than 100,000 refugees and that the United Nations may need to create a "safe zone" within Syria to shelter any beyond that number.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

After months of protests and violent crackdowns, a look back at the violence that has overtaken the country.

Launch slideshow

Thousands of refugees
A Turkish official told Reuters on Tuesday that about 2,500 people fleeing violence in Syria had entered Turkey in the preceding 24 hours, most of them entering the southeastern Turkish province of Hatay.

Turkish journalist Mahir Zeynalov reported on Twitter that four Syrian colonels and two captains crossed the border early Wednesday.

PhotoBlog: Clashes over Syrian conflict in Lebanon leave ten dead

Turkey is now sheltering close to 70,000 Syrian refugees and is struggling to accommodate the influx, which rose after a bomb attack near the border killed eight, spreading panic.

In Lebanon, street battles between Sunnis and Alawites continued for a second night running, fueled by conflicting loyalties in the conflict across the border. The BBC reported that seven were killed and more than 70 wounded in the country's second-largest city, Tripoli.

Syrian President Bashar Assad, an Alawite, is battling largely Sunni opposition fighters. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, himself a Sunni, appealed to both sides to end the "absurd battle" in Tripoli.

In Syria itself, the army deployed tanks on a ring road surrounding Damascus on Wednesday and shelled southern neighborhoods where rebels operate, in the heaviest bombardment on the capital since the army reasserted control last month, residents said.

At least eight people were killed in the shelling, which was accompanied by an aerial bombardment, on the Kfar Souseh, Daraya, Qadam and Nahr Aisheh neighborhoods, they told Reuters.

Regional news channel Al-Jazeera reported that at least 24 people were killed across the country on Tuesday, among them women and children in Aleppo - the city over which the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) claims two-thirds control, and where a Japanese journalist was killed on Monday.

Activists: Japanese journalist killed in Aleppo

"We now control more than 60 per cent of the city of Aleppo, and each day we take control of new districts," said Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, a colonel with the FSA. He went on to list some 30 districts which he claimed were under FSA control, including about half of the embattled neighborhood of Salaheddin.

But a security source in Damascus rejected the claims, according to the AFP news agency, calling them "completely false".

Likened to Iraq invasion
Syrian soldiers killed a journalist sympathetic to the rebels during a raid in Damascus on Wednesday. Mosaab al-Odaallah, who worked for the state-run Tishreen newspaper, was shot at point-blank range at his home by troops conducting house-to-house raids in the southern Nahr Eisha district of the capital, opposition activists said.

Massoud Akko, head of the public freedoms committee at the underground Syrian Journalists Association, said Odaallah's death brought to 54 the number of Syrian journalists, bloggers and writers killed by security forces during the uprising.

"Most have been killed with shots to the head. The regime appears to have adopted a systematic policy of killing journalists and social media activists," Akko told Reuters by telephone from Berlin.

Earlier, Syria's deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said Obama's talk of action against Syria was media fodder.

Speaking after the news conference held by Russia's Lavrov, Jamil said the West was seeking an excuse to intervene, likening the focus on Syria's chemical weapons with the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S.-led forces and the focus on what proved to be groundless suspicions that Saddam Hussein was concealing weapons of mass destruction.

"Direct military intervention in Syria is impossible because whoever thinks about it ... is heading towards a confrontation wider than Syria's borders," he told a news conference in Damascus.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reported the concerns of Christians, who make up about 10 per cent of Syria's population. It said Christians fleeing the fighting have detected an increasingly radicalized Islamist strain among the rebels that makes them fear for their future.

Reuters contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Israelis fret over 'lynching' of Palestinian
• Video: Poaching surge threatens survival of rhinos
• Anti-tanning 'Facekinis' cause stir on China beach
• Reports: Kim Jong Un will travel to Iran
• Slideshow: Migration in the Americas
• Reports: Olympic sprinter drowned when migrant boat sank
• With wife's conviction, what is next for China's Bo Xilai?

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

Free Syrian Army fighters take cover behind sand bags during clashes in Aleppo on Sunday.

NEWS ANALYSIS

Richard Engel, NBC News' chief foreign correspondent, has just left Syria after spending three weeks reporting on rebel forces in the north of the war-torn country.  Based on his three weeks of reporting, he offers an analysis of what could happen if the international community does not intervene in the conflict.

ISTANBUL, Turkey – Al-Qaida units are already entering Syria. 

Pickup trucks waving their black flags and carrying hard-looking men are increasingly evident on Syrian country roads. 

It wasn't like this just a few weeks ago.  A year-and-a-half ago, Syrian rebels started the fight to topple President Bashar Assad’s corrupt police state and end four decades of sectarian favoritism. The majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims but they have been ruled by Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. 

Rebel forces claim to have downed a Syrian fighter jet

The rebels have watched Russia arm the government. They have seen Shiite Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah send fighters and military advisors to help Assad. 

They have also watched the United Nations send observers without authority, and the United States make what seem to many appear to be toothless condemnations. 

So al-Qaida, the world’s most extremist Sunni group, is offering itself as a solution, a savior of the revolution.  It is arriving flush with money and weapons, as I reported last week.

I have spoken with rebel units who told me they were offered large amounts of money, in exchange for pledging allegiance to al-Qaida. But it comes with a caveat: they can not leave. One rebel commander told me that one of his relatives had joined al-Qaida and tried to leave – but was executed for his apparent treason. 

Still others are taking up the opportunity.

"I will go to [al-Qaida], and raise their flag if they give me support," one rebel told me. 

"I'd take money from al-Qaida.  What choice do I have?  I can't defend myself or my family," another rebel commander said.  "I'll take the al-Qaida support, and then deal with them later.  Otherwise there won't be a later." 

He's the most secular Syrian I know.  He hates al-Qaida, but feels he may have to deal with the devil to save his family and village.

Even the most secular rebel groups say they're tempted, and no wonder.  I've seen rebels at checkpoints with empty magazines in the rifles.  They have homemade grenades in pipes and shaving cream cans. 

It's easy to forget that without international support, the rebels in Libya would have lost the war and been massacred.  And the Syrian rebels are asking for much less than what was given to Libya.  They don't want ground troops, although they would take a no-fly zone, if offered.  All they’re really asking for is ammunition and a few hundred anti-aircraft and anti-tank rockets.  

Violence intensifying in Syria: the battle continues in Aleppo

Meanwhile, the United States says it doesn't know who to arm, and that it doesn’t want to give weapons to the wrong people. 

While Saudi Arabia and Qatar are believed to be arming Syrian rebels, and the United States and Britain pledged to step up non-lethal assistance to Assad's opponents, many say this is far from enough.

The United States, rebels say, is paralyzed because of the upcoming presidential elections.  Washington can’t take decisive action because of November’s vote, many rebels contend.

US, Turkey explore no-fly zones over Syria

So while the vast majority of rebels hate the idea of an al-Qaida base in Syria, they also don't want Assad to stay in power and continue his killing spree.  And international inaction may give the United States' worst enemy a gift that it has always wanted – a base at the heart of the Middle East. 

Slideshow: The lives of Syrian rebels

NBC News

People resisting the army of President Bashar Assad in northern Syria cope with loss and prepare for fighting.

Launch slideshow

And this would be a danger to Syria, its neighbors, and the United States.

More world stories from NBC News:

• US, Turkey explore no-fly zones over Syria
• Olympic heroes turn tourists as London 2012 end nears
• 'There will be no winner in Syria,' UN chief warns
• Three US special ops troops killed, Afghan officials say
• Body found at home of missing UK girl's grandmother
• Day at Olympics well worth $1,000 for family of four, NJ fans say
• Notorious Colombian druglord arrested, headed to US for trial

ANTAKYA, Turkey – It’s mid-afternoon, and in the basement of a non-descript residential building in a small town on the Turkish side of the border with Syria, volunteers are busy packing parcels of medicines and first-aid backpacks. The shipments today – as they have been every day – are destined for field hospitals on the battlefields inside Syria.

In this small makeshift warehouse, dimly lit air-conditioned rooms keep medicines cool. IV drips, resuscitator kits, bandages, gauzes, suture kits, pain medications and sterile operating kits are stacked on shelves from floor to ceiling. Every bag is stuffed. Not an inch is spared.

Workers here know every item taken inside Syria can save a life, or at least, help ease the pain of someone suffering.

The warehouse in Turkey is just one point in a vast global network aimed at helping the people of Syria caught in the crossfires of the ongoing conflict there. It is made up of doctors and nurses from America, working for an organization registered in France, buying medicine in Turkey, with funds from Arab countries and elsewhere in the world.

On the ground, the network is run by doctors, nurses and activists who help acquire the medicines locally and ferry them across the rugged border to the Syrian frontlines where people need them the most. Wealthy individuals, families and communities from around the region and the world have combined forces to help pay for the supplies.

While politicians and diplomats wrestle, argue, fight and disagree about what to do to end the violence in Syria, this is what ordinary men and women from around the world are doing to try and save lives.

Zohra Bensemra / Reuters

People and members of the Free Syrian Army carry an injured woman on a stretcher at an unofficial border crossing with Turkey in the northern Syrian province of Idlib on Monday.

Taking a toll on Turkey
If the frontlines of the war are deep in Syrian soil, the rear lines extend deep into neighboring Turkey. 

For a country that has in recent times enjoyed an economic boom, coupled with new diplomatic clout in the region, Syria’s conflict is taking a toll on Turkey and some of Syria’s problems are spilling over into border towns and cities here.

Makeshift care centers dot the Turkish-Syrian border. In town after town, private houses or in some case whole buildings are being converted to patient centers where the wounded and injured from Syria are brought for care, help and sometimes shelter.

The Turkish government says they have taken in over 46,000 Syrian refugees since the start of the conflict. Many of them are housed in refugee camps along the border.

But many of the wounded and injured are brought to Turkish hospitals where they are treated and discharged. Once discharged, few have the proper resources to secure shelters or even the proper post-operative care. As a result, many are in desperate need of follow-up care.

Care houses run by Syrian doctors have sprung up to take in patients in desperate need of help. Many were amputees who lost limbs in battle, or were injured by the fighting – only to lose their limbs while being transported. They say their limbs could have been saved had proper medical care been readily available inside Syria. Instead, due to the long journey from Syrian cities – even though they are just dozens of miles across the Turkish border – many began to suffer infections that were incurable once they arrived on Turkish soil.

Over time, the houses have quickly filled up and the centers have become increasingly vital in providing critical care for some of the patients. Today, along this one stretch of the Turkey-Syria border, there are about half a dozen care centers housing between a dozen to 100 patients in each one, volunteer doctors say.

The average cost to run one of these centers is approximately $60,000 per month. Doctors are renting private residences in some cases and equipping them with basic supplies and equipment. They are not meant to operate as hospitals, but they are clearly serving life-saving functions at times.

'They need everything'
Many of those at the center we visited refused to give their names or even agree to be filmed for our video story. Patients regularly complained that although the care centers were providing important medical assistance, they were too ill-equipped, under-funded and poorly staffed to care for a steady stream of patients.

One patient from Aleppo with severe shrapnel wounds to his leg, agreed to speak with us but refused to give his name. He complained the facility was inadequately staffed.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

Stringer / Reuters

After months of protests and violent crackdowns, a look back at the violence that has overtaken the country.

Launch slideshow

"The Syrian National Council and the opposition groups are collecting millions of dollars from around the world for the revolution and they are just taking the money. Come look at the people here and see how we are being treated and you will see there is no money coming here,” he said.

Volunteers vehemently deny such charges. Instead, they say all of their funds are from private donations from individuals.  

Mark Cameron, a Canadian volunteer medical worker who was visiting one of the centers for the first time with the aim of returning to the West to solicit more funds, was shocked at what he saw.

"They need everything. The situation is desperate. I've been in some troubled spots all over the world, most recently, Cambodia, and as serious as it is there, this need here is immediate. It's today, it's this second,” said Cameron. “They don’t have antibiotics. They did some surgeries here yesterday that blew my mind without pain control because they just don't have it. It simply doesn't exist and the surgeries have to occur."

Cameron stressed that the doctors’ mission is apolitical. 

“This has nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with politics. This is a medical problem at the moment. We're medical professionals and were here to treat the medical problem.”

The volunteer doctors are mostly Syrians who are either living abroad or who escaped the fighting in their country. They are not allowed to practice medicine in Turkey because the care centers fall outside of the official Turkish health care system. But the facilities can help patients with post-operative care or serve as nursing homes for those with no places to go.

Supplies sneak across the border
Back at the warehouse, the medical supplies have been loaded on to a van. The van makes its way to the border under the watchful eye of the Turkish military, which sees the drop off in plain sight.

The military has turned a blind eye to much of the smuggling of medicines taking place along its border. It’s a sensitive issue for the Turkish government, which doesn’t want the border area to become lawless but is increasingly becoming porous for supplies, fighters and even weapons.

In broad daylight, we accompanied the volunteers as they coordinated with their counterparts on the Syrian side of the meeting point.  Along a stretch of the border that is marked by layers of barbed wire, a few cars have already pulled up. Our van approaches, and within minutes the bags and boxes are dropped off, pushed across an opening in the razor wire and loaded in the back of smaller beaten down cars heading to different cities across the battlefield.

The entire drop-off lasted less than 10 minutes. Then it was back to the warehouse for the volunteers in Turkey and off to the frontlines for the activists in Syria. Both sides are in a race against time and acutely aware that with each successful mission like this one, there is another chance to save a life in a conflict that has already taken so many.

ANTAKYA, Turkey – The conflict in Syria continues to escalate as President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and rebels fiercely battle over the country's biggest city of Aleppo.

NBC News’ Ayman Mohyeldin has been in and out of Syria several times throughout the ongoing conflict. He is currently in Antakya, Turkey, near the Syrian border.

He answered reader questions about the conflict earlier Tuesday. Replay the informative chat below. 

Syria's embattled Assad appears on TV for first time in two weeks

SANA via AFP - Getty Images

A handout picture released Tuesday by the official Syrian Arab News Agency shows Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, meeting with Saeed Jalili, a top aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Damascus.

Updated at 8:31 p.m. ET: As Syrian President Bashar Assad appeared on television for the first time in two weeks on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the high-profile defection of the Syrian prime minister increased the urgency of planning for the ouster of Assad's regime.

In South Africa's capital, Pretoria, Clinton said the United States and other countries needed to make sure that Syrian state institutions remain intact once Assad loses his grip on power.

"The intensity of the fighting in Aleppo, the defections, really point out how imperative it is that we come together and work toward a good transition plan," Clinton said.

"I do think we can begin talking about planning for what happens next: the day after the regime does fall. I am not going to put a timeline on it, I can't possibly predict it, but I know it's going to happen as do most observers around the world," Clinton said.

Clinton also warned against "proxies or terrorist fighters" being sent in to join the 17-month-old conflict.

The escalating war in Syria has increasingly divided the region along its sectarian faultline, pitting the mainly-Sunni rebels, who are backed by regional Sunni-led powers Turkey and the Gulf Arab states, against Assad's government that is backed by Shiite Iran.

In a possible sign of increasing American pressure on Assad’s government, Clinton's remarks come a day after three U.S. senators warned about the risks of American failure to provide assistance to Syrian opposition fighters.

Clinton also spoke a day after the defection of Prime Minister Riyad Hijab, the latest in a string of high-level departures from the Assad regime.

US makes plans to keep post-Assad Syria intact

TV appearance
Assad appeared on Syrian state TV on Tuesday meeting with Iran's Supreme National Security Council in Damascus.

Assad's absence had fueled rumors about his health, including a hoax Twitter message Monday that quoted Russia's ambassador to Damascus as saying Assad might have been killed.

Russian officials quickly denied the report.

Three US senators warn about risks of inaction in Syria

In the week after a July 18 bombing that killed four members of his inner circle, Assad was shown twice in silent footage on television, swearing in a new defense minister and meeting military officials.

Slideshow: The lives of Syrian rebels

NBC News

People resisting the army of President Bashar Assad in northern Syria cope with loss and prepare for fighting.

Launch slideshow

During Tuesday's Damascus meeting, Saeed Jalili, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Iran would not let its close partnership with the Syrian leadership to be shaken by the uprising or external foes.

"Iran will not allow the axis of resistance, of which it considers Syria to be an essential part, to be broken in any way," Syrian television quoted Jalili as saying.

The "axis of resistance" refers to Shiite Iran's anti-Israel alliance with Syria's rulers - from the Alawite faith which is an offshoot of Shiite Islam - and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which fought a month-long war with Israel in 2006, with Iranian and Syrian support. 

Damascus and Tehran have held Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states and Turkey, all allies of the United States and European powers, responsible for the bloodshed in Syria by supporting the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim rebels. Western powers sympathetic to the rebels are concerned that anti-Western Sunni Islamists could benefit from a victory for the anti-Assad forces. 

Iran's Fars news agency said Jalili told Assad that Iran was prepared to provide humanitarian aid to Syria. 

As estimated 18,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, as rebels battle government forces in an attempt to wrest control from the Assad family's four-decade grip on power.

Watch World News videos on NBCNews.com

On a fence-mending visit to Turkey, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he wanted to work with Ankara to resolve the crisis. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan described as "worrying" a comment on Monday by Tehran's top general, who blamed Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar for bloodshed in Syria. 

Iran has expressed fears for more than 40 Iranians it says are religious pilgrims kidnapped by rebels from a bus in Damascus while visiting Shiite shrines. Salehi wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon seeking his help to free them. 

Rebels say they suspect the captives were troops sent to help Assad. A rebel spokesman in the Damascus area said on Monday three of the Iranians had been killed by government shelling. He initially said the rest would be executed if the shelling did not stop but later said they were being questioned. 

Fighting rages in Aleppo
On Tuesday, rebels trying to fight off an army offensive in Aleppo said they were running low on ammunition as government forces encircled their stronghold at the southern entrance to the country's biggest city.

Assad has reinforced his troops in preparation for an assault to recapture rebel-held districts of Aleppo after repelling fighters from most of Damascus.

Related: Official: Syria PM defects to anti-Assad opposition

"The Syrian army is trying to encircle us from two sides of Salaheddine," said Sheikh Tawfiq, one of the rebel commanders, referring to the southwestern neighborhood which has seen heavy fighting over the last week.

Mortar fire and tank shells exploded across the district early Tuesday, forcing rebel fighters to take cover in crumbling buildings and rubble-strewn alleyways.

Complete international coverage on NBCNews.com

Tanks have entered parts of Salaheddine and army snipers, using the cover of heavy bombardment, deployed on rooftops, hindering rebel movements.

Slideshow: Behind Syrian rebel lines

Machine guns operated by motorcycle brakes? Get a glimpse at the rebels fighting against Assad's forces in Syria's mountainous Jabal al-Zawiya area.

Launch slideshow

Another rebel commander, Abu Ali, said snipers at the main Saleheddine roundabout were preventing the rebels from bringing in reinforcements and supplies. He said five of his fighters were killed on Monday and 20 wounded.

But rebels said they were still holding the main streets of Salaheddine which have been the frontline of their clashes with Assad's forces.

Journalist: British militants took me hostage in Syria

A fighter jet pounded targets in the eastern districts of Aleppo and artillery shelling could be heard in the early morning, an activist in Aleppo said.

"Two families, about 14 people in total, were believed killed when a shell hit their home and it collapsed this morning," the activist said. The house was one street away from a school being used by rebels, he said.

Reuters, The Associated Press and NBC News' staff contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Are these German protesters the world's oldest squatters?
• Will Games curse leave 'ghost town' London out of the gold rush?
• Interpol drops 'red notice' for dissident
• Race to London's Olympic Park: Fastest way is ...?
• Journalist: British militants took me hostage in Syria
• At Hiroshima memorial, Japan leaders vow to listen
• Olympic hosts: Londoners open their homes to the world
• Canada lobster fishermen lash out at cheaper US exports
• Slideshow: The lives of Syria rebels fighting for freedom

Lo / AFP - Getty Images

Soldiers from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) detain alleged "shabiha" members identified as Mehsin Mohamed Ahmed and Mohamed Azezz, from Aleppo, and accuse them of stealing from homes and giving important information to the Syrian regime, in an undisclosed location in the north of Idlib province on June 19, 2012.

NORTHERN SYRIA – Every war has its demons. The chaos of bullets and bombs gives rise to a certain breed of men who join the fight for the thrill of killing, and to stand before begging prisoners and cowering women in damp tattered clothing. 

In Syria these monsters in civilian clothing who are the enforcers for President Bashar Assad’s regime are called the “shabiha.”

I’m staying in one of their family’s homes.

Syria’s ghost-like devils
It’s a small house with a vaulted stone ceiling. The shower is a bucket on the floor that slopes into a drain. There’s an outhouse in the garden with a fig tree.  The house looks like many in this rural village flanked by olive, walnut and almond groves.  

Syrian troops withdraw from 'secondary towns' and pound Aleppo

The shabiha left this village when the army pulled out to re-group and attack Aleppo, Syria’s commercial capital and the focus of the battle to control the north of the country. Before they left, there were about 50 shabiha in the village by most rebel counts.  

Some lived among the rebels as spies. Others operated as plainclothes commandoes, arresting rebels or just shooting them and their families. I’ve seen a video of shabiha using a chainsaw to cut off a rebel’s head.  I saw a shabiha prisoner tied up with wires. The rebels accused him of raping 10 girls. The youngest girl was said to be just 14.  

Shabiha is a difficult word to translate into English. It comes from the word Syrians used to describe the luxury Mercedes favored by the Assad family’s operatives that the enforcers of the regime used to move money, smuggle weapons and intimidate opponents.

Whenever someone in a flashy Mercedes with tinted window passed by, Syrians would say the car was a ‘shabah.’  It literally means the car was a ‘ghost,’ mysterious and not to be trifled with. The thugs who drove these phantom cars became known as shabiha – the ghosts who worked in the dictatorship’s deep shadows.  

After the fighting started here the Assad government turned the shabiha into a militia. It armed them and sent them to infiltrate, execute and spy on the rebels. Now the shabiha are more feared than Syrian troops. Their evil has become legendary.  

Rebels talk of the shabiha like devils, deadly as the regime’s chemical gas.  But herein lies the danger. 

Engel: Myth vs. truth in the Syrian conflict

Slideshow: Syria uprising

Stringer / Reuters

After months of protests and violent crackdowns, a look back at the violence that has overtaken the country.

Launch slideshow

Who is really who?
I’m not sure if this house was really owned by any shabiha or their relatives. The owner’s son is accused of being shabiha, but the rebels have no solid proof that he did anything wrong at all. And there’s no proof either that the young man I saw tied up with wires, his eyes covered with a bandana, actually raped any girls.  

Every war has revolutionary justice. Here that justice is carried out in the name of fighting shabiha.  

No one knows exactly how many shabiha work for the regime. If the Assad government falls, the rebels will likely – almost certainly – carry out executions of suspected shabiha.  

A man I spoke to this morning said all shabiha should be executed without mercy, and their property sold and distributed among their victims. The man’s own cousin is among those accused of being shabiha.

CFR.org: What you need to know about the Syria crisis

Slippery slope 
But how will Syrians know when justice is being served or miscarried?  

Slideshow: Behind Syrian rebel lines

Machine guns operated by motorcycle brakes? Get a glimpse at the rebels fighting against Assad's forces in Syria's mountainous Jabal al-Zawiya area.

Launch slideshow

There’s also a disproportionate number of Alawites, accused of being shabiha. The Alawites are the minority Shiite Muslim sect to which Assad belongs and which has held a disproportionate amount of power since his family came to power in 1970. But the Alawites make up only 10 percent of the population, sowing resentment among the country’s Sunni population, who make up the majority of Syria’s 22 million people. 

PhotoBlog: Who are the Syrian rebels? 

Syrians need to prepare for the aftermath if the Assad regime falls. Atrocities that could be considered war crimes have been committed in this country and Syrians should rightly demand that the perpetrators be held accountable.  

But Syrians must be careful not to engage in a murderous campaign of hunting ghosts. The shabiha are real, but they can’t be everywhere.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Millionaire medalists: Does Olympic spirit live on?
• In Japan, a nuclear ghost town stirs to life 
• Olympic security plan turns London into fortress
• Myth vs. truth in the Syrian conflict
• 'Building Tomorrow' -- one school at a time

Follow World News on NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook