A prominent group of Syrian protest leaders called on their countrymen Monday not to take up arms against President Bashar al-Assad or call for international intervention to assist in toppling the Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

There have been scattered reports of some Syrians using automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and improvised weapons to repel government troops, but there no organized armed resistance to Assad during the five-month uprising has emerged.

Calls to launch such a resistance have been rare, but they were more widely reported than usual by witnesses at protests in Syria on Friday, at the end of a week that saw Tripoli fall to rebels fighting Muammar Gaddafi with the help of Nato.

"While we understand the motivation to take up arms or call for military intervention, we specifically reject this position," said a statement emailed by the Local Coordination Committees, an activist group with a wide network of sources on the ground across Syria.

"Militarization would ... erode the moral superiority that has characterized the revolution since its beginning."

Assad is not Qaddafi

Nor is it clear Damascus would falls as Tripoli did in the face of armed resistance.

Libya was effectively run as the personal fiefdom Muammar Qaddafi, whose eccentric and erratic personality cult held the country together. When Qaddafi's force of personality was no longer sufficient the army, government, and nation fractured.

But Assad, building on four decades of careful foundational work by his predecessor and father, Hafez Assad, has an enfranchised Alawite minority and wealthy business class vested in his rule -- and a loyal officers' corps commanding the Alawite heart of his army – as well as active support from his allies in Tehran and the Hizbullah terror militias in Lebanon.

Assad's seeming lack of personal charisma belies a stable - and as of yet secure - power base in Syria.

Crackdown Ennui

Witnesses and activists said Assad’s bloody crackdown continued Monday as security forces pursuing anti-government protesters stormed several towns and villages, killing at least six people - including a child - and wounding many others during raids and house-to-house searches.

The largest operation appeared to be in Sarameen in the northern Idlib province, where the London-based Observatory for Human Rights said five people were killed and more than 60 wounded.

One person also died during raids in Qara, a suburb of the capital, Damascus.

Similar raids were reported in the village of Heet near the border with Lebanon, along with a military buildup just outside the central town of Rastan, which has become a hotbed of dissent against Assad.

The Syrian government has placed severe restrictions on the media and expelled foreign reporters, making it nearly impossible to independently verify witness accounts.

Human rights groups say more than 2,200 civilians have been killed since the start of the uprising in March.