As clashes broke out in Lebanon between Sunni Muslims and members of the Alawite sect, the offshoot of Islam to which Syrian President Bashar Assad belongs, Syria plunged deeper into crisis yesterday as troops shelled the town of Rastan.

Just a couple of weeks ago, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon warned that the country – a haphazard mesh of ethnic divisions drawn up when the British left the region – was spiralling out of control and headed towards civil war.

The violence in Rastan, in the central Homs province, and elsewhere around the country is eroding an internationally brokered peace plan that many observers see as the last hope to calm the 14-month-old crisis.

But while the government now (perhaps legitimately) says that sectarian violence is being committed by armed gangs, amateur video showed a young girl who apparently suffered shrapnel wounds in her thigh undergoing treatment in a makeshift Rastan hospital while screaming in pain. Asked where her mother was, the girl cries: “She died”. It is the civilians who are suffering, just as they suffered in Libya when Gaddafi ordered his ragtag army to fire indiscriminately into inhabited areas.

Many Syrians accuse Assad of exploiting that divide by unleashing Alawite gunmen known as ‘shabiha’ who operate as hired muscle for the regime. The government blames the bloodshed on armed gangs and extremists acting out a foreign plot to destabilise Syria.

Rastan, just north of Homs, has been under rebel control since January and rebels have destroyed several army vehicles during the clashes and killed soldiers.

The attack on Rastan came after Syrian forces killed at least five people when they raided a Sunni farming village in Hama province, torching homes and looting shops in what appeared to be a sign of worsening relations among the country’s religious groups.

Sectarian tensions appear to be growing in some areas, adding a dangerous new element to the violence, but so far the Christians have not been drawn in.

Now, the conflict seems to be spilling over borders. The first instance came when Syrian troops fired across the Turkish border. But now, it is the hot potato which is Lebanon, which has been drawn in.

Street battles pitting Lebanese Sunnis – who generally support the Syrian uprising – against Alawite supporters of Assad’s regime killed one person yesterday, raising the death toll to four since Sunday.

The Kofi Annan plan is in tatters and a ceasefire which was put in place on 12 April has only had limited effect as rebels and government troops continue to kill in Syria.

Assad says that the government is observing the ceasefire and that parliamentary elections held on Sunday will kick off political reforms, but his opponents say the so-called reforms will only serve to tighten the Assad grip on power.

World powers have backed the peace plan for Syria, which was put forward by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, but the bloodshed has not stopped. More than 100 UN observers have been deployed in Syria to oversee the truce between the government and armed rebels, but it is clear that they are simply not having any effect.

Death and violence in Syria continues, and it has become amply clear that the international community is not going to get involved. The biggest danger is that the whole region could go up like a powder keg, especially Lebanon. Something has got to give, people are dying and the world watches – literally. The world sent observers. To observe what exactly? Children being shelled by army tanks? Perhaps so. What a world.