The video above shows protesters in Deraa attacking a statue of the former Syrian president, Hafez al-Assad. The scene is highly evocative of Firdous Square in Baghdad, where Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled (with the aid of US troops) in 2003. Indeed, the wobbling statue of Assad is giving a very similar kind of wave.

Below is another video from Deraa, this time showing the current president's image being attacked. 

    
The "fear barrier" is an important consideration for both protesters and Arab regimes. The regimes' basic calculation is that at any given time only a relatively small number of people are likely to cause trouble – because the rest will be too afraid. So long as the fear barrier remains, they can be reasonably confident of dealing with the situation.

What we saw in Tunisia and Egypt was that once the fear barrier was broken large-scale protests erupted in numerous places and the security forces were no longer able to cope. One sign of the fear barrier breaking is when people start openly destroying images of the president – and this is now happening in Syria.

Syria, at the moment, appears to be on the cusp. It's probably fair to say that the fear barrier has been well and truly broken in Deraa, and it is cracking but not quite broken in other parts of the country.

Considering that it is little more than a week since the first serious stirrings against the regime occurred in Syria, events seem to be moving quite fast. Coverage in the mainstream media is still fairly sparse – partly because attention in focused mainly on Libya, but also because of reporting restrictions inside Syria. Readers may find the following sources of information useful:

NOW Lebanon
Frequent live updates. Those from Friday are here.

Syrian Revolution Digest 
Ammar Abdulhamid's new website provides brief commentary, plus a large number of videos.

Syria Comment
A blog by Joshua Landis of Oklahomah University, who is a leading expert on Syria.

Syrian Revolution 
A Facebook page

Syrians for Peaceful Reform
Another Facebook page

In an article for Time magazine, Joshua Landis asks: "Is there a soft landing for Syria?" His answer is: probably not.

The International Crisis Group has also produced a risk assessment. It says:

"Syria is at what is rapidly becoming a defining moment for its leadership. There are only two options. One involves an immediate and inevitably risky political initiative that might convince the Syrian people that the regime is willing to undertake dramatic change. The other entails escalating repression, which has every chance of leading to a bloody and ignominious end."

The ICG sees three inter-related challenges for the Assad regime:

1. "A diffuse but deep sense of fatigue within society at large, combined with a new unwillingness to tolerate what Syrians had long grown accustomed to – namely the arrogance of power in its many forms ..."

2. A long list of specific grievances. "These typically involve a combination: rising cost of living, failing state services, unemployment, corruption and a legacy of abuse by security services."

3. "The third challenge relates to the regime’s many genuine enemies, all of whom undoubtedly will seek to seize this rare opportunity to precipitate its demise."

It goes almost without saying that whatever happens in Syria will have a knock-on effect in Lebanon – especially for Syria's allies there (including Hizbullah). An article from AFP looks at some of the implications.

The Beirut Observer website is reporting (in Arabic) that Vice-President Farouq al-Sharaa has been shot following a dispute with Maher al-Assad and the president's brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat. I wouldn't be surprised if they had quarrelled, but I have no idea how much credence – if any – to give to the report of the shooting.

Finally, a quick word on Libya which I am not attempting to cover in detail here because it is getting so much attention elsewhere.

Suggestions that the situation will turn into a stalemate or result in a Korean-style division of the country don't strike me as very persuasive. I wouldn't rule that possibility out, but it seems to me there is also a reasonable chance of the Gaddafi regime imploding fairly quickly – in a matter of weeks rather than months or years.

UDPATE, 29 March: Sharaa is alive and apparently well. He appeared on the Lebanese Hizbollah TV channel on Monday.