MASSACRES, death squad militias, jihadist infiltration, the stirring up of sectarian hatred and division.

Yes, all the nasty indicators of the current state of Syria are now plain to see. And this before international political prevarication or diplomatic obstruction at the highest levels when it comes to finding a solution to the crisis.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has repeated his warnings about the drift towards catastrophic civil war, but the simple inescapable truth is Syria has been showing the full-blown symptoms for some considerable time now.

As every painful month within the country passes, what began as an uprising against oppression has contorted and evolved into a conflict far more complex, with profound regional and inter-national implications.

Trying to make sense of where all this is heading is no easy matter but at the very least requires taking stock of two inextricably linked internal and external dimensions.

Perhaps more than anything, what is now apparent is the intensification of a sectarian civil war. A few months ago while I was on the Syria-Turkey border, those fleeing Syria's cities and towns told repeatedly of the way the country's ruling Alawite minority was being mobilised against Sunni communities, who for years they had lived alongside in comparative harmony.

At the sharp end are armed civilian militias from Alawite villages who are known to Syrians as shabiha – which comes from the Arabic word for ghosts.

Recruited predominately from the ranks of poor young men belonging to the Alawite offshoot of Shia Islam, the shabiha have become Syria's equivalent of the Nazi SS in the Second World War.

On numerous occasions, Sunnis I met told of how the shabiha, when not directly engaged in their own sectarian cleansing raids, would come to adjacent Alawite communities distributing weapons to volunteers and encouraging locals to rise up against Sunni neighbours.

Owing everything to the Assad regime, not least the blood money wages it provides, the shabiha will do whatever is required to protect the President Bashar al Assad's interests. Summary executions, that polite word for murder and massacre, have become their stock in trade. Accountability is non-existent.

While there has been no confirmation as to who was responsible for the deaths of 108 people in Houla last week, most observers, including the UN's high commissioner for human rights, point the finger at the shabiha.

Now some among Syria's majority Sunni population have found themselves pushed towards the ranks of jihadist organisations claiming to be the defenders of their Sunni brethren.

This is the other crucial internal factor shaping Syria's dangerous immediate future. Having claimed responsibility for recent bombings in Damascus –atrocities in their own right – the al Nusra Front is said to include Syrian jihadists who have returned from fighting on other battlefronts and will most likely act as an al Qaeda franchise in the Syrian conflict.

Al Nusra says such attacks are in direct retribution for atrocities it says are carried out by President Assad's Alawite regime and the shabiha. The net effect of both the shabiha's and al Nusra's vicious contribution to the Syrian civil war is to seriously stoke up sectarian divisions while simultaneously isolating the original dissenting voices and legitimate protest that inspired Syria's uprising in the first place. Both sides, Government and opposition, now claim "terrorists" are operating in their midst.

On Tuesday, while attending the Amnesty International Media Awards in London, I listened as Paul Conroy, the British photographer who was injured in the attack in Homs that killed journalist Marie Colvin, told of how he recently shared a platform at an event discussing the Syrian crisis.

Among the other panellists was a Russian delegate who, when asked by Mr Conroy about Moscow's continued supply of arms to the Assad regime, dismissed the inquiry with the trite reply that if "we didn't someone else would".

Mr Conroy pointed out many innocent civilians were dying in Syria because of Russian weapons and he himself was "still carrying a chunk of Russian-made shell in his kidney". The Russian delegate, like his government, was not for listening or turning.

Yesterday, the essence of Mr Conroy's take was echoed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who insisted that, along with arms supplies, Russian vetoes at the UN Security Council are undoubtedly contributing to civil war in Syria.

Honourable action over Syria is not yet a lost cause. On Wednesday, Syria's honorary consul in the US resigned over the Houla massacre, a gesture too little too late in a crisis where the options for a proper resolution are rapidly narrowing.

In the midst of growing sectarian hatred, a creeping jihadist presence, international diplomatic obduracy and regional rivalry, it's now all too easy to forget what Syria's uprising was all about in the first place; a people's genuine desire for greater freedom and justice.