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