If you want a sense of just how divided the country is becoming right now you don’t have to venture far from Damascus.

Whilst some of the more commonly known conflict areas like Homs, Idlib and Deeraa are all at least a few hours’ drive, just 15 minutes out of the city centre and the military presence is everywhere.

Leaving town

We drove into the suburb of Arbeen earlier today (the AL observers had apparently been there earlier in the day). As you drove into the town, which is very close to the centre of Damascus, there was a military checkpoint and a makeshift camp with tents and sandbags.

Checkpoint

The town was dead. Shop after shop closed, the streets mostly deserted. It felt exactly the same as when we'd driven into Zabadani last week a few days before the observers visited.

When the observers are around, people come out, talk to the cameras. But in their absence it’s a different situation altogether. People are off the streets, no-one’s sure what might happen.

The tension in Arbeen was bone-chilling.

Deserted garbage bins with anti-regime slogans written on them were used to block the road.

Despite reports we’d seen on facebook of some people who lived in Irbin saying that things were okay and that the government now had control here – they quite clearly weren’t.

Zabadani, now Arbeen, and more and more of the cities, towns and suburbs we’re visiting have that same irksome ghost-town quality to them.

Deserted in the day and dangerous at night, nearly every evening there are reports of clashes and protests in these areas.

And as ever it’s hard to gauge who’s in charge, who’s at fault. If anything, over the past few weeks people have seemed to become even more introverted. Yes the media have had more access than ever before in this crisis, but people are noticeably scared to speak – nervous about picking a side, perhaps, when there’s a real sense here now that things could go either way – no one seems to want to be caught sitting on the wrong side of the fence.

So all those occupying the middle ground who may not have had a strong political viewpoint before, are clearing the area.

The moderate middle ground is now a deserted no-man’s land and it feels like there’s a tense stand-off between the two sides.

It’s difficult when so many people are being killed to see a way to defuse the tension. And the confusion is like a lighter fluid being poured over the situation.

As we left Irbin we stopped a little way past the checkpoint and small makeshift military camp and walked back to have a talk to some of the soilders there guarding it.

Military Camp

They seemed just as edgy and uncertain as the people in the opposition we’ve spoken to. There are without a doubt people holding high office in the military, opposition and elsewhere who have a huge responsibility to pay for the situation that’s playing out in Syria right now.

But these guys guarding the checkpoint to a suburb, some of the guys we’ve come across during our time here, they seem just as uncertain as anyone – no one wants to die here.

But with such a volatile situation and so many lives lost daily the threats become so real, so palpable, that everyone and anyone could be the enemy.

As we were walking away from these men, one of the group I was with said half-jokingly, ‘maybe don’t take anymore pictures whilst we’re walking to the car, they might shoot.’

We’d just been speaking to these men, on the balance of probabilities their shooting us as we made the way back to our taxi was unlikely – but in these circumstances still a possibility.

Enough of a possibility to make you extremely nervous.

And this is what these people at the checkpoints and in the army and the people in the Free Syrian Army groups are going through every day. Except they’re nervous and armed.

And if the situation ignites in areas like Irbin, I’d imagine a lot of people will lose their lives not because someone wanted them dead, but because someone thought that they wanted them dead.

Venture a little further from the suburbs and the volatility becomes even more dangerously apparent.Visiting the mountain town of Maloula on Wednesday we passed through, I think, five major checkpoints.

And along the road, Syria looked like a country preparing for war.

Road to Damascus from the town of Maloula

I lost count of the number of tanks we saw. Trenches dug deep along the side of the roads, military presence all the way along this stretch of what would otherwise have been beautiful countryside.

Road to Damascus from the town of Maloula

Maloula’s one of the few places where the ancient language Aramaic (the language Christ spoke) is still preserved.

A place where tourists and pilgrims receive a warm welcome from the nuns there who’ll tell you over tea the tale of how the mountainside split for an escaping princess.

It’s enchanting to walk through the winding mountain paths and hear the people there speak Aramaic. You feel a world away from the unfolding conflict in the rest of the country.

But of course it’s there.  In the absence of tourists, in the silence of the streets.

Road to Damascus from the town of Maloula

It seems wherever you go in the country, up in the mountains to the doorstep of Damascus, the conflict is inescapable.

Even such a hauntingly beautiful place as Maloula, now seems marred by these symbols of war.

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