DAMASCUS, Syria—Protests in the south of Syria continued Tuesday, the fifth consecutive day of unrest that is posing an unprecedented challenge to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Small gatherings had been reported Monday and Tuesday in several agricultural towns around the city of Deraa, which has been the center of protests since Friday, as well as in Hajjar al-Aswad, a town close to Damascus.
In an attempt to quell the unrest, Mr. Assad on Tuesday dismissed the governor of Deraa, Faisal Kolthoum. People familiar with the matter said the city's head of political security has been transferred.
The U.S. on Monday condemned Syria's reaction to the protests, which have been largely peaceful.
"The United States condemns the violence that has taken place in Syria over the weekend," said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council. Reports indicated that Syrian authorities had used "disproportionate force against civilians, and in particular against demonstrators and mourners in Deraa," Mr. Vietor said.
At least six people have been killed in Deraa since the unrest began on Friday; Syrian forces shot dead four on Friday and one on Sunday. Another, 11-year-old Mundhir Masalmi, died Monday after suffering tear gas inhalation a day earlier, an activist told the Associated Press.
In a report on the situation in Deraa, Syria's official news agency SANA said armed agitators rode into the city on motorcycles, filling Molotov cocktails from plastic drums of gasoline and setting fire to public and private property.
Deraa is returning to "normal life," according to the agency. SANA also said a committee charged with investigating "the unfortunate events" in Deraa is continuing its work and will hold to account those found responsible.
Simultaneously, the authorities have ramped up arrests and detentions. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday that Loay Hussein, a prominent rights campaigner and former political prisoner who had spoken out in favor of the protests, had been arrested Tuesday. Activists in Damascus reported dozens more arrests.
On Thursday, 32 family members who took part in a silent demonstration last Wednesday calling for the release of Syrian political prisoners were arrested and charged with "weakening national morale," according to human-rights groups in Syria.
Local leaders from Deraa—the epicenter of the protests, which were initially sparked by the continued detention of more than a dozen teenagers who were taken into custody for allegedly creating political graffiti—have presented a list of demands to the Syrian government. These include an end to local corruption, the dismissal of the governor and the city's head of political security, the release of political prisoners from Deraa and the ability to buy and sell property without permission from local security officials.
The protestors haven't called for the end of Mr. Assad's regime, although chants of revolution have been a feature of the unrest.
It is hard to predict what will happen next, observers said.
"It is a wait-and-see situation," said Abdel Ayman Nour, a prominent dissident who runs the All4Syria website from abroad. "Many demands are local but it is not yet clear whether they will be met. If they are not, the situation could escalate."
Although the demonstrations don't appear to be coordinated, information networks are growing. A new daily digest of links to videos and media reports on the protests is being circulated via email. Activists in other areas of the country say the public's sympathy for the protesters is growing.
On Monday, hundreds of people in Deraa attended the funeral of 23-year-old Raed al-Kerad, a victim of Sunday's violence, chanting "No more fear!".
Analysts say Mr. Assad will have to take more action to stop the protests from spreading. "Bashar al-Assad will need to offer more concessions to keep people happy," said one Western diplomat in Damascus. "But there is a question mark over whether he can do that quickly enough."
The U.S., the United Nations' human-rights office and several human-rights groups have called for an independent investigation into the weekend violence. "Those responsible for the violence over the weekend must be held accountable," said Mr. Vietor.
With demonstrations failing to catch on in larger cities, some analysts are predicting that the regime can hold on for now. Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, said "the government is going to do what it always does, which is brutalize the people, kick down doors, and drag some people to jail" in hopes that the problem will go away.
But the stability may be fleeting, given the fast-moving nature of the protests in the region, he said. "The youth is the dynamic factor that is changing faster than we can even comprehend," Mr. Landis said.