Military presence along the roads to Malouhla last week

­‘Urban Warfare’ – that’s how some activists have described the scenes that played out in Damascus suburbs over the weekend, as government forces moved in to regain control of these areas.

On Sunday, people in downtown Damascus had woken up to the sounds of gunfire and shelling that was taking place.

The reports and videos from the area that appear to show tanks rolling in, and smoke rising from the towns are disturbing.

My mind keeps flashing back to all people we spoke to in the FSA [Free Syrian Army]-controlled suburb of Saqba last week. The families and children and how on earth they must have felt, knowing that the forces were about to move in in a big way.

We saw firsthand the panic that’s elicited by the mention of security forces in these areas – now it seems after a weekend of fighting the military might have gained back control.

We’ve been getting dribs and drabs of information here – when we attempted to drive to some of these areas yesterday our way was blocked – security forces were diverting traffic.

We met one man from Jobour who’d told us in the morning there had been a funeral held and that the protests that ensued afterwards had been fired upon.

We haven’t yet been into these areas to see how things have changed there – last week in Arbeen whilst the government forces still manned the main checkpoint into the suburb – inside we found roads blocked off by dustbins and empty streets of closed shops.

When I wrote and reported about what we were seeing in areas like Saqba – I had questions about why I wasn’t publishing photos of the thousands of people I’d estimated had taken to the streets.

I hadn't been sure about publishing the faces of opposition when the situation was so uncertain and volatile.

Now I’m extremely glad I didn’t – with reports of retaliatory arrests being made in all these areas.

The government claim they are fighting armed terrorists – the Free Syrian Army say they are protecting civilians.

Withdrawal of tanks from towns and villages was one of the Arab League peace plan stipulations

When we’d spoken to some FSA members they had told us their main objective was to protect people who want the freedom to express their political views and have not been given a safe platform to do so.

I was speaking to political writer Fayze Sara yesterday about just who the Free Syrian Army in these areas actually were. He said:

“You have to understand that the FSA are in reality a group of people, officers and soldiers who have defected and have taken with them just some simple weaponry, have simple organization and ranks. Added to this they are usually from these areas of unrest [locals], so they have no need to form bases and camps because they are originally from these areas.”

They were no match it seems for heavy military force.

When this uprising began, this was supposed to be a peaceful protest. But along the way it’s grown increasingly violent after measure after measure failed – the latest being the Arab League mission.

We’re still waiting to find out if it'll restart – though honestly even if it does – trying to hand the baton over to the UN has essentially rendered the whole mission useless.

It was depressing to watch the mission unravel in the way it did.

That Saudi Arabia and Qatar have any interest at all in democracy in Syria or elsewhere is pretty laughable to many people – the withdrawal of the Gulf State monitors at the same time as Syria had agreed to extend the mission was a dangerously provocative move.

Now the mission it seems has lost any semblance of hope it had, of making a difference to the situation here.

It was criticized for not doing enough, not being strong enough, but the fact remains that whilst it was operating, there were at least some small steps being taken.

Now it’s halted and immediately the ramifications of that decision have been seen – whatever plan had been in place for the withdrawal of tanks and release of political prisoners, from what’s occurred this weekend, for the time being, it seems all bets are off.

Bins sealed off sections of town out of government control in suburb of Arbeen last week

It was criticized for not doing enough, not being strong enough, but the fact remains that whilst it was operating, there were at least some small steps being taken.

Now it’s halted and immediately the ramifications of that decision have been seen – whatever plan had been in place for the withdrawal of tanks and release of political prisoners, from what’s occurred this weekend, for the time being, it seems all bets are off.

­The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.