Rebels mirror regime in Syria's murky war The man guarding an entrance to Muhafaza Square, one of Damascus's most famous landmarks, is not a soldier or a policeman but an armed man in a tracksuit. He is said to belong to one of the 17 branches of the country's intelligence services. Round the corner in the historic old city, members of a so-called popular committee of civilians stand at the intersection of winding alleyways toting guns. Two years into Syria's uprising, Bashar al-Assad's regime is still entrenched in the capital. But even as the rumble of the regime's artillery shakes the city, the authority of the state is fraying and its army overstretched. That is starkly illustrated by the chaotic proliferation of actors who have taken over the defence of some areas in and around Damascus. It can be hard to tell the army or security services from the armed civilians drawn from neighbourhoods. Confusing matters further, some of the fatigues-clad men seen rolling through the suburbs cover their faces, looking like rebels. For actual fighting, the regime is supplementing its soldiers with mainly Alawite militias known as the shabbiha. Though many regime supporters still revere the army as patriots, some of these forces fighting for the government are being accused of gang-like behaviour in the capital and its environs. On the fringes of the old city, a market of dubiously sourced second-hand goods has expanded across several streets, selling not just antiques but armchairs, sofas and widescreen televisions that residents say have been looted by government forces from homes in the vanquished suburbs. A stallholder insists they were sold by families leaving the country. Higher-value booty is stored in warehouses in the wealthy Mazzeh 86 district, according to one Damascene businessman. In a pro-opposition town in the Qalamoun mountains just north of Damascus, the destroyed house fronts and bullet holes tell of the military operation that was pursued here a few months ago. Once the fighting had ended, one elderly resident, no lover of the rebels, discovered that thefts had taken place. "Before, nobody stole anything; before, the army was a good army," he says sadly. Now everything's got mixed up. The army at least is more accountable than the popular committees that the regime has allowed - some say encouraged - to defend areas populated by religious minorities, where fears of Islamic extremism in the rebel ranks are intense. In Christian areas, these groups seem to operate like an armed neighbourhood watch programme, but they are growing in number and visibility. They have the potential to complicate the conflict. In the predominantly Christian suburb of Sadnaya, Hossam, a shaven-headed popular committee guard, recalls his group's recent kidnap of 140 people from a nearby Sunni village in response to the capture of one of its residents. Though the village elders eventually secured their freedom, the government's earlier attempt at intervention was unsuccessful. "The government told us to release them, but we didn't listen," he says defiantly. At the entrance to the Alawite settlement of Ash al-Warwar, just on the edge of the northern Damascus district of Barzeh, popular committees have a more frontline role. Harried-looking men in military fatigues check identity cards beneath a tattered Syrian flag at a checkpoint. Pro-government forces here are rumoured to be involved in theft, but Ali, one of the guards at the checkpoint, says he has his hands full dealing with rebel attacks. The army is doing nothing to disrupt a rebel stronghold a few hundred metres up the road, he says. "Every day I go home and my gloves smell like blood," he says. People are dying here and no one is helping. Abduction by both sides has become rampant in this murky security environment, with people at risk even in central Damascus. One businessman who has helped negotiate the release of several people says that some regime forces demand compensation to set free people taken in waves of arrests, blurring the distinction between arrest and kidnap. With the proliferation of actors from both sides, as well as profit-motivated criminals, it can take more than two weeks just to find out which armed group or branch of state security forces is holding the victims, he says. As the civil war becomes ever dirtier, rebels actions are starting to mirror those of the regime. Tales of looting and kidnapping abound. A former resident of Jobar, a rebel stronghold near Abbassayeen Square in the northeast of the city, says the behaviour of some of the rebels there has eroded his faith in the pro-democracy revolution he was once willing to risk everything for. "They're walking around with guns and money, stealing cars and kidnapping," he says disgustedly. They're a copy of the regime. Picture changes for wary regime supporters A quiet change has stolen across Damascus in the past two years. Before the uprising, pictures of the president - usually in aviator shades - adorned shopfronts and taxi rear windows all over the city, writes Abigail Fielding-Smith People seemed to be vying with each other to see who could cram the most patriotic imagery in to the available space. It was never clear to what extent this reflected genuine fervour, whether it was simply convention or if it was insurance against the prying interest of the Mukhabarat , or intelligence services, but Bashar al-Assad was unavoidable. On the streets of today's Damascus he is much harder to find. His portrait still hangs inside some shops and restaurants, but as kidnappings and assassinations of regime supporters mount, it seems to be an affiliation that people are less keen to publicly advertise. Instead, many Damascenes are trying to avoid anything which could flag them up as regime-affiliated or wealthy. According to one businessman, the price of a Mercedes-Benz car has dropped by 25 per cent, whilst the anonymous Kia Morning has become more expensive. Deflecting the attention of kidnappers has become the new priority for an elite that had just grown used to living as flamboyantly their Lebanese cousins after years of Ba'athist privations. "A guy with a car is a package," the businessmen remarked wryly. What is now as ubiquitous in the capital as Bashar's portrait once was is begging. Thousands of families have fled here after their hometowns in the suburbs and elsewhere were caught up in destructive fighting. Grubby children intone plaintively at traffic lights, while adults simply say the name of the town they are from in order to try and get money. How much longer the capital will be safe - for them, for regime supporters or anyone else - is unclear. Standing outside a blackened building that had been struck by a shell a few hours earlier, one man offered bleak prognosis on Wednesday. "There is no safe place to go anywhere," he said. Only the grave.