'Everyone is waiting to die'

Assad used nerve gas in Homs

Syrian army officer who defected said yesterday that the Syrian security forces began to use Russian-made nerve gas to suppress the uprising.
Captain Ahmed Abd - Razzaq, who served in chemical warfare headquarters, said the use of gas is designed to facilitate the breaking into Homs.
The Syrian officer also claimed that the nerve gas use is not limited to Homs.
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Father & Son in  Idlib Syria

'Everyone is waiting to die'

What is quite interesting is how the varied opposition members have managed to set up information networks. They’re able to disseminate government (troop) positions and information fairly quickly.

We were witness to one bit of information that came through, where someone had gotten information via a network of just passing word on and having people jump on motorcycles to try to get it to the next village over, about a mass movement of government tanks.

That of course, as you can imagine, sparked widespread panic, because people did not know initially where (the tanks) were headed. But then a defector who had defected from that particular convoy showed up at this location, and he informed people of where the convoy was heading. And they were able to inform those people at that location of the government’s location as well.

On that level, there is in place a fairly sophisticated way of trying to get information out, but at the same time, it’s fairly primitive – because you have to remember that for most of the time, there is no cell phone or landline network to try to call people. So it’s all about trying to get word of mouth as fast as possible from one village, from one neighborhood to the other.

CNN asked local residents where they stand on the current situation and if the opposition thinks it can topple this regime.

They believe at the end of the day, at some point in time, who knows when, the regime is going to fall – that quite simply, they cannot go back, and Syria will not go back, to the way that it was.

But one young activist that I was speaking to put it this way: He said, “If there is military intervention, then yes, there will be a lot of bloodshed, but it’s going to be over a lot quicker. And if there isn’t military intervention, there is going to be even more bloodshed, and it’s going to take a lot longer to bring down the regime.”

What a lot of people are understanding and accepting at this stage is that this is going to be a bloody battle, that more lives are going to be lost, and that perhaps the bigger challenge for Syria too is going to be after the regime topples.

Post by: CNN news blog editor Mallory Simon, CNN's Arwa Damon