Murdoch's TV Pirates Panorama

world. And above is, a killing ground.

GUNSHOT. Tonight, Panorama takes you inside

the Syrian regime's bloodiest assault on its own people.

Over four months we were smuggled in and out to cover a life or death

struggle for democracy. I've never seen the ferocity, the

sheer bloody-mindedness of them to eradicate the place of both

buildings and people. Now, the uprising in Homs has been

crushed, and the regime is facing allegations of war crimes. Still,

Western governments agonise, arming the rebels could lead to Civil War,

but if they don't, how else can the We first entered Syria late last

year, illegal, from neighbouring Lebanon.

The regime doesn't allow free access for journalists.

We follow men running guns to the insurgents. Each carries three

rifles. The last smugglers to pass this way,

just a few hours earlier, were ambushed by an army patrol.

The next day, activists lead us into Homs.

They're risking their lives to help us. Final destination, the district

of bar Baba Amr. We are warned if the army spots us they will shoot.

The city we have entered is Syria's third largest. Homs is the toughest

centre of resistance to the country's police state. Nowhere

more than the district of Baba Amr, home to 30,000 people.

That night, we are taken to a street protest.

However tiny, this is part of what they call Free Army.

For the protesters, just being here could mean arrest.

This is an act of defiance, this is the Syrian uprising.

They've been doing this every day for nearly a year.

And they have to protest here, in these side streets, or risk being

shot. They exercise liberty as they have

only dreamt of it before, like President Bashar al-Assad and his

father be before -- before him have ruled over Syria for 40 years, the

regime says these people are criminals and terrorists.

Dissent is met with brute force. In Baba Amr they're hemmed in by

armoured vehicles. In the district's streets, the fear

is suffocating. Surrounded by children and

grandchildren, we meet Yasukichi Takayama. She tells me she lost

three generations of her family in the past few months. Her grand son

Khalid was killed by Syrian forces, he had simply gone out to get food.

TRANSLATION: On Friday, there was no bread. So he said, "I will bring

you some from our house." On the way, a shell came down and hit him

on his shoulder. Her son, Ali was shot and killed as

he joined a protest after praying at the mosque.

TRANSLATION: Given our situation, I expected something like this. The

way that they are hitting us. I expected such a thing. The protest

was peaceful, they were holding olive branches and shouting, "God

is great." Her husband, and a brother-in-law died too.

In response, militiamen have taken to the streets.

They are here, they say, to protect the people. Part of a new force,

the Free Syrian Army. All are deserters from the

government forces. TRANSLATION: They told us to shoot

the protesters. I refused. I cannot kill my own countrymen.

The officers are pigs. I furnished my gun around and --

turned my gun around and shot at the officer who gave the order. I

shot at him and ran. Almost from the beginning, it's

been Syrian government propaganda that armed groups or armed gangs as

they are described are supporting the opposition. Now, after months

of protesters being shot down in the streets, that myth has become a

reality. More and more a joining the

insurgent. A gun battle signals another

deforeign exchange. Soldiers are running into Baba Amr under cover

of darkness, fired on by members of their old unit. Five make it out,

but a sixth man does not. TRANSLATION: We heard him screaming

but then we were under heavy fire. We could not go back to get him.

The other soldiers were chasing us. How many follow these men to join

the Free Army will determine the outcome of the revolution.

New front lines were emerging, following sectarian divisions.

Most of the country is Sunni Muslim, but its rulers come from a minority

sect, the Alawites. Syria is not yet a simple story of Sunnis

against Alawites and their allies, the Shi' ites and the Christians,

but it could become that. From Baba Amr, it was starting to

look like a war of neighbourhood against neighbourhood.

Abu Mohammed is one of its defenders. Before the uprising he

was a tobacco smuggler, he says that there was no other work for

Sunni Muslims. Now he is one of those in charge. He says government

snipers attack from just across the road.

GUNFIRE The gunmen here insist that their role is soley to protect the

civilians. But there is no doubt, the conflict

is escalating. TRANSLATION: We set out to ambush

some of the sniechers, firing at civilians from the rooftops. Thanks

be to God, we succeeded in killing at least one.

-- snipers. These are the streets of Baba Amr,

but the target for the district's new breed of journalist, like this

Syrian, remains President Bashar al-Assad.

After he shot the first bullet, killed the first guy, he put fear

in our hearts. No-one was scared anymore. We would rather die rather

than live under his control. Baba Amr's people had a promise from the

rebels, that they would never abandon them, but we were left

wondering how long could they hold out? After two months we are able

to return to Homs. Still it is in rebel hands.

On the way, we meet a large group of Free Army fighters.

We join them as they prepare to attack a nearby army base.

They're going to fry to get this bomb up to the entrance and

detonate it. It's just before dawn.

The attack is big. 100 men. They seem well-trained and have a battle

plan. They are to start it by firing the

heaviest weapons in their Arsenal, even though they have just two of

Then the base starts to return fire. Just as our cameraman Fred Scott is

filming. The sun came up, the shooting

started. Nothing really went to plan.

The rebels mainly have Kalashnikovs, the army have artillery.

Mortars start to drop on the hillside.

We were pretty much pinned down the whole time until it was time to go.

Move with the guys. After nearly an hour of exchanging

fire like this, we had to run away. Get across this fast. Go! That is a

bad place, here. GUNFIRE

They don't get their bomb even close to the base.

The attack has failed. Can you tell me when?

All of these men are Syrian army defectors. They've been attacking

in the base below, men, who until only recently, were their comrades

in arms. That's a mortar.

Oh, it was a tank. Remarkably, they escape without casualties.

The rebels believe that most of the army wants to join them.

But the commander of this rebel unit is tired of waiting.

TRANSLATION: If they wanted to defect they would have come long

ago. The crimes of the President Bashar al-Assad regime, until the

start of the revolution until now are clear, so they don't have

excuses not to defect. They should be with us.

For some, this is a religious war. One that they feel they are winning,

but while we were with them, the regime was preparing an offensive.

It would start just a few miles away in Homs.

The shelling is relentless. It is indiscriminate.

Artillery, against residential areas.

Allah Akbar. We head towards the city. We are

told it is impossible to get N The government's army is attacking

from the Christian, Shi'ite, and Alawite areas. The rebel Free Army

has fallen back to the Sunni enclave of Baba Amr. It is

surrounded. But the rebels have a lifeline, a

tunnel right ound the -- right under the front lines. We slip

through the outer cordon around Homs. This was the uprise's best-

kept secret, the only way in or out of Baba Amr.

We ran into a metal shed. There was a gaping hole and six inches of mud

and climbed down the rungs about 20 feet into pitch blackness. Thinking

what the hell is going on here? It's a water course, two miles long,

less than five feet high. I'm ahead, but Fred Scott is filming behind me.

We tried to run... We don't want to be here. If a Syrian patrol starts

Above ground, we emerge into a ghost town.

It already seems very different from the last time we were here.

The streets are empty. Everyone's waiting for the next

round of shelling. Allah Akbar. Shells come in every few seconds.

It's not a battle, Baba Amr has no heavy weapons.

The shelling's been going on all morning now. What you hear over and

over again from the people is that they feel abandoned by the outside

world. We take cover in a house. A family

here are sheltering too, but the houses here have thin walls. No

basements. There is barely any protection.

TRANSLATION: The children are so afraid. They follow me around the

house. I say, "Don't worry, everything

will be OK." I say that God will take revenge for us.

The make-shift clinics are overwhelmed. There are no supplies

and few doctors. Watch his face.

People come here because they are afraid of a rest -- or an arrest at

a stailt hospital. Even here they could be hunted down.

-- state hospital. Even here they could be hunted down. Still, one

man want to -- wants to tell the world, 11 members of his family

have died. Five of them were under 13 years of age, children.

They were under 13 years of age. They were killed at the same time

by a cluster bomb. We could not tell one child from the other when

it came to burying them. People had hoped that the UN would

protect them. But that morning Russia and China

They're angry at their Arab neighbours too, why aren't they

helping? The people here are afraid the regime believes it has a free

hand to do whatever it wants. Undoubtedly, most of the victims

are civilians. Many of them are children.

Wrapped in the shroud is a seven- year-old girl, killed in the

shelling. The attendant carefully writes her

name, Hanadi. He has done this for four members of his own family too.

Hanadi must be buried at night. The daytime is too dangerous.

Even now, even here, they are attacked.

GUNFIRE. There is no family, no prayers and

By now, tanks were at the edges of Baba Amr. It seemed that they were

about to come in. We could definitely feel that the

time was up for Baba Amr. That the intensity of the shelling meant

that we had a chance to go and we took it.

We are able to escape, but a small group of journalists comes in after

Like us, they stay in the Media Centre. It is really just an

apparentment, used by activists, but it has a generator, an internet

and hot water. The activists believe it is only the media

coverage that is restraining the regime.

What is killing the regime is the media. This is the strongest weapon

in Homs. It is getting the news out. If we were not getting the news out,

how is the world to know what is going on inside of Syria? Among the

journalists at the house, Marie Colvin. One of the best and bravest

foreign correspondents of her generation. This was her last

report. I watched a little baby die today.

Absolutely horrific. A two-year-old who had been hit.

They stripped him and found that the shrapnel had gone into the left

chest. The doctor said he could not do anything. His little tummy kept

heaving until he died. That is happening over and over and over.

Allah Akbar! After a number of near-misses and then a devastating

volley finds the Media Centre. Marie's photographer was injured in

the blast. We realised that the house had

taken a direct hit. At that point the adrenaline was at a high. I was

looking for my camera. Thinking that the attack was over, that I

would get shots of 9 chaos in the house, whether the shell hit.

The impact reduced the building to rubble.

Marie Colvin and a French photographer, Remi Ochlik were

killed instantly. Did the regime deliberately target

them? The attack certainly removed the last independent witnesses just

as the army closed in. A month later we decide to try to

go back. For a third time we are heading to the Syrian border.

This morning after 25 days of continuing shelling, the Syrian

ground attack began in Baba Amr. We they're has already fallen.

We are just about to cross the border. It is always pretty tense,

but there is a feeling that this time things are more chaotic than

ever. We are travelling with rebel

fighters. We are still in what they like to call "Free Army" though

that is shrinking fast. As children here enjoy the snow, a

few miles way, the rebel front line is collapsing.

The wound ready already starting to come out, ahead of the government

The security forces entered Baba Amr only after the rebel fighters,

the Free Army, withdrew. This was state TV's version of

events. Syria TV cameras recorded the

devastation caused by the armed terrorist groups who committed

horrific crimes against civilians there.

The people of Baba Amr, getting drinking water from snow, may not

agree with that. But they told me time and again,

that they felt betrayed by the Free Army.

Baba Amr's Free Army is divided. Some wanted to stay.

Others said leaving was the only way to stop the shelling and save

the civilians. TRANSLATION: It took 25 days for

the Syrian army with all of its might to capture just one

neighbourhood, Homs. We will always be proud of this. We will hold our

heads high because of it, until the day that we die.

But there are other questions about the rebels.

This shocking video shows Syrian army prisoners captured in December.

The rebels told me that they executed all of them, saying that

they were guilty of war crimes. This will worry Western governments

as they debate arplg the rebels. -- arming the rebels.

In the wake of the Free Army's retreat, Baba Amr was emptying.

We met just a small part of the exodus.

These people have been sneaking out of Homs through the orchards, not

through official checkpoints. I've been told that several thousand and

made it out in exactly the same way. One of them addresses President

Bashar al-Assad directly. This group walked for three days to

avoid the soldiers. They're terrified of what

government forces are doing now that they are back in control.

TRANSLATION: Whoever they catch at a checkpoint is dead. Dead.

TRANSLATION: They took our boys and men. They took the boys from the

houses and the men at the checkpoints.

Everywhere we go, we meet groups of women and children without men.

The Ibrahim family tell me that they witnessed a massacre. Dozens

of men and boys, they say were killed in the street. Four of them

were their own family. Including a 12-year-old boy.

TRANSLATION: They lay them on the ground. The soldiers were pinning

them down with their boots. Why, four of them were cutting their

throats. They did this with their knives. Their hands were tied

behind their backs like this. Then they started slaughtering them.

TRANSLATION: There was a raid. My father went to open the door. I

said to him, "Run away." He told me, "I have not done anything." They

opened the door and they took him. My uncle, ply brother, my cousin

too. Can such horror stories be true? We

can't know for certain yet. But yesterday pictures emerged of

bodies, apparently in the place that the family described.

The regime denies it is responsible for war crimes.

They are blaming the rebels. President Bashar al-Assad insists

he is all that stands in the way of all-out Civil War. He is refusing

to stand down, refusing to negotiate.

But has the uprising really been crushed? We would rather live under

missiles, under missiles and we are free. We will never go back to the

way that we used to live. Never. Baba Amr paid dearly for its

defiance. What was done here was intended, perhaps, as a warning to

the rest of the country. Many of those we spoke to for this

film have since been killed. The sniper, Abu Muhammad, the

commander, Abu Yaya. Rasheeda, who lost her husband, son and grandson.

Herself, shot by a sniper. As seven-year-old Hanadi is buried,

has the regime really won a lasting victory? That depends on weather