The battle for Syria: angry deserters, desperate night-time battles and children shot down while playing in the street.
Demonstrators protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Hula, near Homs earlier this month Photo: REUTERS
By Paul Wood, Homs, Syria
6:38PM GMT 26 Nov 2011
A heavy-machine gun was still clattering away in the pitch black as the five soldiers described how they had just deserted from the Syrian Army to join the revolution. A sixth had not made it.
"We heard him screaming," said Mahmoud Ali, one of the defecting soldiers, "but we couldn't go back. There were too many troops pouring in."
They had fought their way out of their base, running under fire to reach the Bab Amr quarter of Homs. We watched tracer fire arcing back and forth over the buildings for more than an hour. Now, people were coming out into the street to embrace them, the newest members of the Free Syrian Army.
Fresh from their flight, rapidly expelling plumes of breath into the night air, they explained why they had changed sides. Their officers had told them they would be coming to Homs to fight "terrorists" but earlier that day they were ordered to fire on unarmed protesters in the streets of Homs.
"They gave us the order to shoot on the demonstrators," said Ahmed Daleti. "So we said 'No,' these people are peaceful. They just want freedom. We are all one people, one blood – we couldn't just shoot them."
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They were tired and a little muted because of the loss of their comrade. But, lit by the car headlight, they did a little dance for our camera. Raising their Kalashnikovs over their heads, they chanted. "God Bless the Free Army."
Syria's government has maintained, almost since the start of the mass protest, that it was facing armed groups. After months of peaceful demonstrators being killed in the streets, the myth has become reality.
We entered Syria from Lebanon with men running guns to what is a growing insurgency. Fuelled by demand in Syria, the price for a black market Kalashnikov has gone up to $1,200 (£780) in Lebanon.
With remarkable efficiency, we were passed along a chain of smugglers, activists, and fighters. We were driven on back roads, slipping around checkpoints, until we reached the city of Homs, the main centre of opposition to the regime.
Arriving in Bab Amr, we saw members of Free Army on street corners with heavy machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. It would be too much to say that they hold the district but they are growing more confident.
"Once if the Mukhabarat (the secret police) wanted to arrest you, they'd send a couple of guys on a motorbike," said Abu Mohammed, one of men leading the struggle in Bab Amr. "Now they would have to send a thousand soldiers – and even then they would think twice."
Still, the sense of fear in Bab Amr was suffocating. The area was hemmed in by army and police posts, armoured vehicles sitting on the major road junctions. There was often gunfire. We couldn't see who was shooting but people said checkpoints often fired at people going by. Late one afternoon, a six-year-old boy was shot dead as he played on his front door step.
We joined the family for prayers in the mosque, men standing silently over the body, tears streaming down their faces. They were in no doubt that a government sniper had done this. The father explained to apologetically that he could not be interviewed on camera because he would be arrested.
Early one morning, we went with two Free Army soldiers who were going to attack the Syrian base they said was used by government snipers firing into Bab Amr.
They waited an hour and they spotted a solider going outside for a cigarette. One of the men fired twice with an M-16 automatic rifle, freshly smuggled in from Lebanon.
As they ran away, the man who'd fired the shot explained: "I aimed at his foot, at his leg, to put him out from the service. I didn't want to kill him."
The Free Army says its job is to protect civilians – especially the street protesters they believe will bring down the regime. Though we saw a steady stream of defectors, a whole unit has yet to change sides. The Free Army leadership say they need outside help from the West to bring that about.
Lieutenant Waleed al Abdullah, one of the Free Army leaders in Homs, despite his junior rank, said that the regime would quickly crumble is there was a no fly-zone in Syria, just like the one Nato imposed over Libya.
"Seventy per cent of the army are ready to defect," he said. "Whole brigades with their officers; even the Special Forces. But no battalion dares to move even ten meters because they fear the Syrian air force will attack."
But help is not on the way – and so everyday the conflict is deepening.
On the way out of Syria we stayed with a group of about a dozen Free Army fighters. Sitting crossed-legged on the floor, weapons leaning on the wall, they debated whether to attack an army post. After all, we were all once conscripts, one said. We should attack only the secret police, said another.
In the end, they attacked, in the early hours of the morning, assaulting the post with heavy machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. They killed two soldiers and wounded two more, they said.
There will be much more of this. Slowly, the struggle for democracy in Syria is being transformed, the country inching towards civil war.
Paul Wood is a BBC world affairs correspondent. He went into Syria with cameraman Fred Scott.
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