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This is our only way into Homs. A city under siege. | :00:16. | :00:22. | |
A secret tunnel to rebel-held areas, their sole link to the outside | :00:22. | :00:28. | |
world. And above is, a killing ground. | :00:28. | :00:38. | |
:00:38. | :00:39. | ||
GUNSHOT. Tonight, Panorama takes you inside | :00:39. | :00:47. | |
the Syrian regime's bloodiest assault on its own people. | :00:47. | :00:51. | |
Over four months we were smuggled in and out to cover a life or death | :00:51. | :00:59. | |
struggle for democracy. I've never seen the ferocity, the | :00:59. | :01:02. | |
sheer bloody-mindedness of them to eradicate the place of both | :01:02. | :01:07. | |
buildings and people. Now, the uprising in Homs has been | :01:07. | :01:13. | |
crushed, and the regime is facing allegations of war crimes. Still, | :01:13. | :01:17. | |
Western governments agonise, arming the rebels could lead to Civil War, | :01:17. | :01:27. | |
:01:27. | :01:41. | ||
but if they don't, how else can the We first entered Syria late last | :01:41. | :01:46. | |
year, illegal, from neighbouring Lebanon. | :01:46. | :01:50. | |
The regime doesn't allow free access for journalists. | :01:50. | :02:00. | |
:02:00. | :02:08. | ||
We follow men running guns to the insurgents. Each carries three | :02:08. | :02:17. | |
rifles. The last smugglers to pass this way, | :02:17. | :02:24. | |
just a few hours earlier, were ambushed by an army patrol. | :02:24. | :02:34. | |
:02:34. | :02:35. | ||
The next day, activists lead us into Homs. | :02:35. | :02:43. | |
They're risking their lives to help us. Final destination, the district | :02:43. | :02:53. | |
:02:53. | :02:56. | ||
of bar Baba Amr. We are warned if the army spots us they will shoot. | :02:56. | :03:02. | |
The city we have entered is Syria's third largest. Homs is the toughest | :03:02. | :03:06. | |
centre of resistance to the country's police state. Nowhere | :03:06. | :03:12. | |
more than the district of Baba Amr, home to 30,000 people. | :03:12. | :03:16. | |
That night, we are taken to a street protest. | :03:16. | :03:23. | |
However tiny, this is part of what they call Free Army. | :03:23. | :03:27. | |
For the protesters, just being here could mean arrest. | :03:27. | :03:37. | |
:03:37. | :03:37. | ||
This is an act of defiance, this is the Syrian uprising. | :03:37. | :03:41. | |
They've been doing this every day for nearly a year. | :03:41. | :03:45. | |
And they have to protest here, in these side streets, or risk being | :03:45. | :03:51. | |
shot. They exercise liberty as they have | :03:51. | :04:01. | |
:04:01. | :04:09. | ||
only dreamt of it before, like President Bashar al-Assad and his | :04:09. | :04:16. | |
father be before -- before him have ruled over Syria for 40 years, the | :04:16. | :04:26. | |
:04:26. | :04:27. | ||
regime says these people are criminals and terrorists. | :04:27. | :04:33. | |
Dissent is met with brute force. In Baba Amr they're hemmed in by | :04:33. | :04:38. | |
armoured vehicles. In the district's streets, the fear | :04:38. | :04:44. | |
is suffocating. Surrounded by children and | :04:44. | :04:50. | |
grandchildren, we meet Yasukichi Takayama. She tells me she lost | :04:50. | :04:56. | |
three generations of her family in the past few months. Her grand son | :04:56. | :05:02. | |
Khalid was killed by Syrian forces, he had simply gone out to get food. | :05:02. | :05:07. | |
TRANSLATION: On Friday, there was no bread. So he said, "I will bring | :05:07. | :05:14. | |
you some from our house." On the way, a shell came down and hit him | :05:14. | :05:19. | |
on his shoulder. Her son, Ali was shot and killed as | :05:19. | :05:23. | |
he joined a protest after praying at the mosque. | :05:23. | :05:27. | |
TRANSLATION: Given our situation, I expected something like this. The | :05:27. | :05:33. | |
way that they are hitting us. I expected such a thing. The protest | :05:33. | :05:38. | |
was peaceful, they were holding olive branches and shouting, "God | :05:38. | :05:48. | |
:05:48. | :05:48. | ||
is great." Her husband, and a brother-in-law died too. | :05:49. | :05:51. | |
In response, militiamen have taken to the streets. | :05:51. | :05:56. | |
They are here, they say, to protect the people. Part of a new force, | :05:56. | :06:01. | |
the Free Syrian Army. All are deserters from the | :06:01. | :06:06. | |
government forces. TRANSLATION: They told us to shoot | :06:07. | :06:12. | |
the protesters. I refused. I cannot kill my own countrymen. | :06:12. | :06:19. | |
The officers are pigs. I furnished my gun around and -- | :06:19. | :06:22. | |
turned my gun around and shot at the officer who gave the order. I | :06:22. | :06:30. | |
shot at him and ran. Almost from the beginning, it's | :06:30. | :06:34. | |
been Syrian government propaganda that armed groups or armed gangs as | :06:35. | :06:39. | |
they are described are supporting the opposition. Now, after months | :06:39. | :06:43. | |
of protesters being shot down in the streets, that myth has become a | :06:43. | :06:51. | |
reality. More and more a joining the | :06:51. | :06:58. | |
insurgent. A gun battle signals another | :06:58. | :07:01. | |
deforeign exchange. Soldiers are running into Baba Amr under cover | :07:02. | :07:06. | |
of darkness, fired on by members of their old unit. Five make it out, | :07:06. | :07:14. | |
but a sixth man does not. TRANSLATION: We heard him screaming | :07:14. | :07:18. | |
but then we were under heavy fire. We could not go back to get him. | :07:18. | :07:25. | |
The other soldiers were chasing us. How many follow these men to join | :07:25. | :07:31. | |
the Free Army will determine the outcome of the revolution. | :07:31. | :07:39. | |
New front lines were emerging, following sectarian divisions. | :07:39. | :07:45. | |
Most of the country is Sunni Muslim, but its rulers come from a minority | :07:45. | :07:51. | |
sect, the Alawites. Syria is not yet a simple story of Sunnis | :07:51. | :07:54. | |
against Alawites and their allies, the Shi' ites and the Christians, | :07:54. | :08:01. | |
but it could become that. From Baba Amr, it was starting to | :08:01. | :08:09. | |
look like a war of neighbourhood against neighbourhood. | :08:09. | :08:14. | |
Abu Mohammed is one of its defenders. Before the uprising he | :08:14. | :08:20. | |
was a tobacco smuggler, he says that there was no other work for | :08:20. | :08:23. | |
Sunni Muslims. Now he is one of those in charge. He says government | :08:23. | :08:28. | |
snipers attack from just across the road. | :08:28. | :08:32. | |
GUNFIRE The gunmen here insist that their role is soley to protect the | :08:32. | :08:38. | |
civilians. But there is no doubt, the conflict | :08:38. | :08:45. | |
is escalating. TRANSLATION: We set out to ambush | :08:45. | :08:50. | |
some of the sniechers, firing at civilians from the rooftops. Thanks | :08:50. | :08:56. | |
be to God, we succeeded in killing at least one. | :08:56. | :09:04. | |
-- snipers. These are the streets of Baba Amr, | :09:04. | :09:10. | |
but the target for the district's new breed of journalist, like this | :09:10. | :09:12. | |
Syrian, remains President Bashar al-Assad. | :09:12. | :09:18. | |
After he shot the first bullet, killed the first guy, he put fear | :09:18. | :09:25. | |
in our hearts. No-one was scared anymore. We would rather die rather | :09:25. | :09:31. | |
than live under his control. Baba Amr's people had a promise from the | :09:31. | :09:34. | |
rebels, that they would never abandon them, but we were left | :09:35. | :09:44. | |
wondering how long could they hold out? After two months we are able | :09:44. | :09:47. | |
to return to Homs. Still it is in rebel hands. | :09:47. | :09:52. | |
On the way, we meet a large group of Free Army fighters. | :09:52. | :09:57. | |
We join them as they prepare to attack a nearby army base. | :09:57. | :10:01. | |
They're going to fry to get this bomb up to the entrance and | :10:02. | :10:06. | |
detonate it. It's just before dawn. | :10:06. | :10:13. | |
The attack is big. 100 men. They seem well-trained and have a battle | :10:13. | :10:18. | |
plan. They are to start it by firing the | :10:18. | :10:22. | |
heaviest weapons in their Arsenal, even though they have just two of | :10:22. | :10:32. | |
:10:32. | :10:36. | ||
Then the base starts to return fire. Just as our cameraman Fred Scott is | :10:36. | :10:44. | |
filming. The sun came up, the shooting | :10:44. | :10:49. | |
started. Nothing really went to plan. | :10:49. | :10:59. | |
:10:59. | :11:05. | ||
The rebels mainly have Kalashnikovs, the army have artillery. | :11:05. | :11:11. | |
Mortars start to drop on the hillside. | :11:11. | :11:17. | |
We were pretty much pinned down the whole time until it was time to go. | :11:17. | :11:23. | |
Move with the guys. After nearly an hour of exchanging | :11:23. | :11:32. | |
fire like this, we had to run away. Get across this fast. Go! That is a | :11:32. | :11:42. | |
:11:42. | :11:47. | ||
bad place, here. GUNFIRE | :11:47. | :11:50. | |
They don't get their bomb even close to the base. | :11:50. | :12:00. | |
:12:00. | :12:12. | ||
The attack has failed. Can you tell me when? | :12:12. | :12:16. | |
All of these men are Syrian army defectors. They've been attacking | :12:16. | :12:23. | |
in the base below, men, who until only recently, were their comrades | :12:23. | :12:31. | |
in arms. That's a mortar. | :12:31. | :12:36. | |
Oh, it was a tank. Remarkably, they escape without casualties. | :12:36. | :12:41. | |
The rebels believe that most of the army wants to join them. | :12:42. | :12:51. | |
But the commander of this rebel unit is tired of waiting. | :12:51. | :12:55. | |
TRANSLATION: If they wanted to defect they would have come long | :12:55. | :13:00. | |
ago. The crimes of the President Bashar al-Assad regime, until the | :13:00. | :13:03. | |
start of the revolution until now are clear, so they don't have | :13:03. | :13:10. | |
excuses not to defect. They should be with us. | :13:11. | :13:15. | |
For some, this is a religious war. One that they feel they are winning, | :13:16. | :13:20. | |
but while we were with them, the regime was preparing an offensive. | :13:20. | :13:28. | |
It would start just a few miles away in Homs. | :13:28. | :13:38. | |
The shelling is relentless. It is indiscriminate. | :13:38. | :13:43. | |
Artillery, against residential areas. | :13:43. | :13:48. | |
Allah Akbar. We head towards the city. We are | :13:48. | :13:55. | |
told it is impossible to get N The government's army is attacking | :13:55. | :14:00. | |
from the Christian, Shi'ite, and Alawite areas. The rebel Free Army | :14:00. | :14:04. | |
has fallen back to the Sunni enclave of Baba Amr. It is | :14:04. | :14:10. | |
surrounded. But the rebels have a lifeline, a | :14:10. | :14:17. | |
tunnel right ound the -- right under the front lines. We slip | :14:17. | :14:22. | |
through the outer cordon around Homs. This was the uprise's best- | :14:23. | :14:27. | |
kept secret, the only way in or out of Baba Amr. | :14:27. | :14:34. | |
We ran into a metal shed. There was a gaping hole and six inches of mud | :14:34. | :14:38. | |
and climbed down the rungs about 20 feet into pitch blackness. Thinking | :14:38. | :14:46. | |
what the hell is going on here? It's a water course, two miles long, | :14:46. | :14:53. | |
less than five feet high. I'm ahead, but Fred Scott is filming behind me. | :14:53. | :15:02. | |
We tried to run... We don't want to be here. If a Syrian patrol starts | :15:02. | :15:12. | |
:15:12. | :15:15. | ||
Above ground, we emerge into a ghost town. | :15:15. | :15:20. | |
It already seems very different from the last time we were here. | :15:20. | :15:24. | |
The streets are empty. Everyone's waiting for the next | :15:24. | :15:34. | |
:15:34. | :15:41. | ||
round of shelling. Allah Akbar. Shells come in every few seconds. | :15:41. | :15:51. | |
It's not a battle, Baba Amr has no heavy weapons. | :15:51. | :15:57. | |
The shelling's been going on all morning now. What you hear over and | :15:57. | :16:00. | |
over again from the people is that they feel abandoned by the outside | :16:00. | :16:09. | |
world. We take cover in a house. A family | :16:09. | :16:14. | |
here are sheltering too, but the houses here have thin walls. No | :16:14. | :16:21. | |
basements. There is barely any protection. | :16:21. | :16:27. | |
TRANSLATION: The children are so afraid. They follow me around the | :16:27. | :16:32. | |
house. I say, "Don't worry, everything | :16:32. | :16:42. | |
:16:42. | :16:43. | ||
will be OK." I say that God will take revenge for us. | :16:43. | :16:47. | |
The make-shift clinics are overwhelmed. There are no supplies | :16:47. | :16:51. | |
and few doctors. Watch his face. | :16:51. | :17:01. | |
:17:01. | :17:02. | ||
People come here because they are afraid of a rest -- or an arrest at | :17:02. | :17:07. | |
a stailt hospital. Even here they could be hunted down. | :17:07. | :17:11. | |
-- state hospital. Even here they could be hunted down. Still, one | :17:11. | :17:19. | |
man want to -- wants to tell the world, 11 members of his family | :17:19. | :17:25. | |
have died. Five of them were under 13 years of age, children. | :17:25. | :17:30. | |
They were under 13 years of age. They were killed at the same time | :17:30. | :17:33. | |
by a cluster bomb. We could not tell one child from the other when | :17:33. | :17:38. | |
it came to burying them. People had hoped that the UN would | :17:38. | :17:42. | |
protect them. But that morning Russia and China | :17:42. | :17:52. | |
:17:52. | :17:58. | ||
They're angry at their Arab neighbours too, why aren't they | :17:58. | :18:08. | |
:18:08. | :18:11. | ||
helping? The people here are afraid the regime believes it has a free | :18:11. | :18:21. | |
:18:21. | :18:23. | ||
hand to do whatever it wants. Undoubtedly, most of the victims | :18:23. | :18:27. | |
are civilians. Many of them are children. | :18:27. | :18:30. | |
Wrapped in the shroud is a seven- year-old girl, killed in the | :18:30. | :18:37. | |
shelling. The attendant carefully writes her | :18:37. | :18:43. | |
name, Hanadi. He has done this for four members of his own family too. | :18:43. | :18:49. | |
Hanadi must be buried at night. The daytime is too dangerous. | :18:49. | :18:53. | |
Even now, even here, they are attacked. | :18:53. | :18:58. | |
GUNFIRE. There is no family, no prayers and | :18:58. | :19:08. | |
:19:08. | :19:13. | ||
By now, tanks were at the edges of Baba Amr. It seemed that they were | :19:13. | :19:19. | |
about to come in. We could definitely feel that the | :19:19. | :19:24. | |
time was up for Baba Amr. That the intensity of the shelling meant | :19:24. | :19:31. | |
that we had a chance to go and we took it. | :19:31. | :19:36. | |
We are able to escape, but a small group of journalists comes in after | :19:36. | :19:44. | |
Like us, they stay in the Media Centre. It is really just an | :19:44. | :19:47. | |
apparentment, used by activists, but it has a generator, an internet | :19:47. | :19:51. | |
and hot water. The activists believe it is only the media | :19:51. | :19:55. | |
coverage that is restraining the regime. | :19:55. | :19:59. | |
What is killing the regime is the media. This is the strongest weapon | :19:59. | :20:03. | |
in Homs. It is getting the news out. If we were not getting the news out, | :20:03. | :20:10. | |
how is the world to know what is going on inside of Syria? Among the | :20:10. | :20:16. | |
journalists at the house, Marie Colvin. One of the best and bravest | :20:16. | :20:19. | |
foreign correspondents of her generation. This was her last | :20:19. | :20:25. | |
report. I watched a little baby die today. | :20:25. | :20:30. | |
Absolutely horrific. A two-year-old who had been hit. | :20:30. | :20:34. | |
They stripped him and found that the shrapnel had gone into the left | :20:34. | :20:39. | |
chest. The doctor said he could not do anything. His little tummy kept | :20:39. | :20:49. | |
:20:49. | :20:50. | ||
heaving until he died. That is happening over and over and over. | :20:50. | :20:57. | |
Allah Akbar! After a number of near-misses and then a devastating | :20:57. | :21:02. | |
volley finds the Media Centre. Marie's photographer was injured in | :21:02. | :21:06. | |
the blast. We realised that the house had | :21:06. | :21:11. | |
taken a direct hit. At that point the adrenaline was at a high. I was | :21:11. | :21:15. | |
looking for my camera. Thinking that the attack was over, that I | :21:15. | :21:19. | |
would get shots of 9 chaos in the house, whether the shell hit. | :21:20. | :21:23. | |
The impact reduced the building to rubble. | :21:23. | :21:27. | |
Marie Colvin and a French photographer, Remi Ochlik were | :21:27. | :21:34. | |
killed instantly. Did the regime deliberately target | :21:34. | :21:38. | |
them? The attack certainly removed the last independent witnesses just | :21:38. | :21:48. | |
:21:48. | :21:49. | ||
as the army closed in. A month later we decide to try to | :21:49. | :21:54. | |
go back. For a third time we are heading to the Syrian border. | :21:54. | :22:00. | |
This morning after 25 days of continuing shelling, the Syrian | :22:00. | :22:08. | |
ground attack began in Baba Amr. We they're has already fallen. | :22:08. | :22:12. | |
We are just about to cross the border. It is always pretty tense, | :22:12. | :22:16. | |
but there is a feeling that this time things are more chaotic than | :22:16. | :22:21. | |
ever. We are travelling with rebel | :22:21. | :22:29. | |
fighters. We are still in what they like to call "Free Army" though | :22:29. | :22:37. | |
that is shrinking fast. As children here enjoy the snow, a | :22:37. | :22:43. | |
few miles way, the rebel front line is collapsing. | :22:43. | :22:47. | |
The wound ready already starting to come out, ahead of the government | :22:47. | :22:57. | |
:22:57. | :23:02. | ||
The security forces entered Baba Amr only after the rebel fighters, | :23:02. | :23:08. | |
the Free Army, withdrew. This was state TV's version of | :23:09. | :23:18. | |
events. Syria TV cameras recorded the | :23:18. | :23:22. | |
devastation caused by the armed terrorist groups who committed | :23:22. | :23:25. | |
horrific crimes against civilians there. | :23:25. | :23:29. | |
The people of Baba Amr, getting drinking water from snow, may not | :23:29. | :23:34. | |
agree with that. But they told me time and again, | :23:34. | :23:40. | |
that they felt betrayed by the Free Army. | :23:40. | :23:44. | |
Baba Amr's Free Army is divided. Some wanted to stay. | :23:44. | :23:48. | |
Others said leaving was the only way to stop the shelling and save | :23:48. | :23:54. | |
the civilians. TRANSLATION: It took 25 days for | :23:54. | :23:59. | |
the Syrian army with all of its might to capture just one | :23:59. | :24:02. | |
neighbourhood, Homs. We will always be proud of this. We will hold our | :24:02. | :24:06. | |
heads high because of it, until the day that we die. | :24:06. | :24:15. | |
But there are other questions about the rebels. | :24:15. | :24:25. | |
:24:25. | :24:27. | ||
This shocking video shows Syrian army prisoners captured in December. | :24:27. | :24:31. | |
The rebels told me that they executed all of them, saying that | :24:31. | :24:36. | |
they were guilty of war crimes. This will worry Western governments | :24:36. | :24:42. | |
as they debate arplg the rebels. -- arming the rebels. | :24:42. | :24:48. | |
In the wake of the Free Army's retreat, Baba Amr was emptying. | :24:48. | :24:53. | |
We met just a small part of the exodus. | :24:53. | :24:58. | |
These people have been sneaking out of Homs through the orchards, not | :24:58. | :25:05. | |
through official checkpoints. I've been told that several thousand and | :25:05. | :25:09. | |
made it out in exactly the same way. One of them addresses President | :25:09. | :25:19. | |
:25:19. | :25:26. | ||
Bashar al-Assad directly. This group walked for three days to | :25:26. | :25:35. | |
avoid the soldiers. They're terrified of what | :25:35. | :25:42. | |
government forces are doing now that they are back in control. | :25:42. | :25:49. | |
TRANSLATION: Whoever they catch at a checkpoint is dead. Dead. | :25:49. | :25:52. | |
TRANSLATION: They took our boys and men. They took the boys from the | :25:52. | :25:57. | |
houses and the men at the checkpoints. | :25:57. | :26:07. | |
:26:07. | :26:11. | ||
Everywhere we go, we meet groups of women and children without men. | :26:11. | :26:14. | |
The Ibrahim family tell me that they witnessed a massacre. Dozens | :26:14. | :26:19. | |
of men and boys, they say were killed in the street. Four of them | :26:19. | :26:23. | |
were their own family. Including a 12-year-old boy. | :26:23. | :26:29. | |
TRANSLATION: They lay them on the ground. The soldiers were pinning | :26:29. | :26:34. | |
them down with their boots. Why, four of them were cutting their | :26:34. | :26:38. | |
throats. They did this with their knives. Their hands were tied | :26:38. | :26:43. | |
behind their backs like this. Then they started slaughtering them. | :26:43. | :26:48. | |
TRANSLATION: There was a raid. My father went to open the door. I | :26:48. | :26:53. | |
said to him, "Run away." He told me, "I have not done anything." They | :26:54. | :26:59. | |
opened the door and they took him. My uncle, ply brother, my cousin | :26:59. | :27:05. | |
too. Can such horror stories be true? We | :27:05. | :27:10. | |
can't know for certain yet. But yesterday pictures emerged of | :27:10. | :27:18. | |
bodies, apparently in the place that the family described. | :27:18. | :27:21. | |
The regime denies it is responsible for war crimes. | :27:21. | :27:24. | |
They are blaming the rebels. President Bashar al-Assad insists | :27:25. | :27:30. | |
he is all that stands in the way of all-out Civil War. He is refusing | :27:30. | :27:37. | |
to stand down, refusing to negotiate. | :27:37. | :27:47. | |
:27:47. | :27:49. | ||
But has the uprising really been crushed? We would rather live under | :27:49. | :27:52. | |
missiles, under missiles and we are free. We will never go back to the | :27:53. | :27:58. | |
way that we used to live. Never. Baba Amr paid dearly for its | :27:58. | :28:02. | |
defiance. What was done here was intended, perhaps, as a warning to | :28:02. | :28:09. | |
the rest of the country. Many of those we spoke to for this | :28:09. | :28:18. | |
film have since been killed. The sniper, Abu Muhammad, the | :28:18. | :28:23. | |
commander, Abu Yaya. Rasheeda, who lost her husband, son and grandson. | :28:23. | :28:29. | |
Herself, shot by a sniper. As seven-year-old Hanadi is buried, | :28:29. | :28:38. | |
has the regime really won a lasting victory? That depends on weather | :28:38. | :28:43. |