http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16984219
12 February 2012 Last updated at 18:21 GMT
The Free Syrian Army is now waging an escalating guerrilla war
The BBC's Paul Wood has spent harrowing days under fire in the Baba Amr area of Homs and here reports on citizens subjected to a relentless artillery barrage by government troops.
Most of the people in the makeshift field hospital in Baba Amr did not want to be filmed.
They were too afraid of being arrested to show their faces. But not Abdel Nasr Zayed.
"I have lost 11 already and now I am willing to sacrifice everything for God," he told me, a large, bearded man, his voice booming down the hospital corridor.
Of the 11 members of his extended family who had been killed - by shells or sniper fire - five were children under 14.
It was a typical story. Often people would tell you they had lost not one but many of their relatives.
Abu Suleiman's job at the hospital was to wrap bodies in their burial shrouds.
He had performed this service for his son, his son-in-law, his nephew, his neighbour and many of his friends.
Abu Sufyan, our host the last time we stayed in Baba Amr, had lost a brother, a nephew, an uncle and, most recently, his mother.
"Is this a civil war?" I was asked from London.
In Baba Amr, it certainly felt like one. But we were seeing a battle over one city. And Homs is not Syria. Not yet, perhaps.
Sectarian abductions
In Homs, the Sunni areas, such as Baba Amr, largely support the uprising. They were being shelled by the Syrian army, from the Alawite and Christian areas, which largely support the regime.
There are Sunnis in the security forces; Christians and Alawites have joined the revolution. It is not yet a purely sectarian conflict. But the pressures for it to become one are enormous.
Yousseff Hannah was a prisoner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) - the rebel fighters who have defected from government forces.
He was on a mattress, his thigh bandaged, in the basement of a house near the town of Qusayr, about 25 miles (40km) from Homs.
"Law and order," he told me, groaning from his wound, in reply to my question about his job.
One of his captors angrily interrupted: "No. You are mukhabarat (secret police). Tell them you are mukhabarat."
The FSA had snatched him a few days before from his home. He had been recovering there from the leg wound, received in Homs.
FSA fighters showed me a film taken from the mobile phone of a captured Shabiha. Prisoners lay face down on the ground, hands tied behind their backs. One-by-one, their heads were cut off ”
Aged 45, he was only a corporal, hardly a big fish. The rebels said they had taken him because his family had their own checkpoint in Qusayr that was harassing people.
They wanted it to stop. For too long, they said, people like him - protected by the regime - had felt they were untouchable, able to act with impunity.
Cpl Yousseff was a Christian. After he was taken, his relatives kidnapped six Sunnis, killing one in the process. In return, around 20 Christians were abducted.
"Some hotheads have been kidnapping Christians," one of the senior FSA commanders in the area told me. "We have got to calm this down."
After several days of stalemate, everyone was released, unharmed, including Corporal Yousseff. This was done as part of a deal for him and his family to leave Qusayr permanently.
Failed attack
Discussing the past tense few days, one of the Christian residents told me that Qusayr still had Christians who supported the uprising.
FSA fighters were trained and disciplined during the attack - but eventually had to retreat
About a dozen attended the big Friday protest. In solidarity with them, the entire demonstration walked off when some at the front grabbed the microphone and started shouting Salafi (Islamist) slogans.
Everyone felt the town had come close to tipping over into serious sectarian bloodletting that week.
Is that the future for Syria? Much depends on the character of the FSA.
All of the fighters we met were Sunni. Perhaps that does not matter.
The commander near Qusayr told me they were fighting for all of Syria's religions and sects: Christian, Muslim, Alawite, Sunni, Druze, Shia.
"We are experiencing freedom for the first time," said Maj Ahmad Yaya.
But his next words left no doubt, either, that for many, this is a religious - and Islamic - struggle against the secular Baath regime.
"For the first time," he went on, "we are able to proclaim the word of God throughout this land."
The official doctrine of the FSA is that it is there only to protect the unarmed demonstrators. In practice, the FSA is waging an escalating guerrilla war.
We followed Maj Yaya's group of fighters as they attacked an army base near the town.
The attack was big, more than 60 men. In contrast to the fighters in Libya, they were trained, disciplined and followed a plan.
One man said his brother was still serving in the area.
"What if he was in the base? What if he was killed?" I asked.
"I feel very bitter about my brother but what happens is in God's hands now. May God help me," he replied.
Inevitably, they failed. After an hour of firing on the base they had to flee when the government troops started using heavy weapons, dropping mortar shells on the hill.
Shabiha executions
Afterwards, one of the FSA fighters showed me a video he had filmed in December.
They had ambushed a convoy of armoured vehicles. Eight of the security forces were killed, 11 captured. The video showed the prisoners, in camouflage uniform, lined up facing a wall.
Some were still bleeding after the battle. Their arms were raised.
One turned to the camera, looking petrified. The man who'd taken the pictures said that despite their army uniforms, their ID cards showed they were Shabiha (or ghosts) - the hated government paramilitary force.
"We killed them," he told me.
"You killed your prisoners?"
"Yes, of course. They were executed later. That is the policy for Shabiha."
These were Sunni Shabiha, he added; the only Alawite had escaped.
I checked with an officer. While soldiers were released, he said, members of the Shabiha were "executed" after a hearing before a panel of FSA military judges.
To explain, they showed me a film taken from the mobile phone of a captured Shabiha. Prisoners lay face down on the ground, hands tied behind their backs. One-by-one, their heads were cut off.
The man wielding the knife said, tauntingly, to the first: "This is for freedom."
As his victim's neck opened, he went on: "This is for our martyrs. And this is for collaborating with Israel."
Western dilemma
In Homs, after we left, there were reports from human rights activists that the Shabiha, going house-to-house, had murdered three families, men, women and children.
To most FSA fighters, "executing" the Shabiha seems only just.
Such things will give Western governments pause as they decide whether, or, increasingly, how to help the FSA.
Washington and London say they will not arm the rebels but they are thinking about how to assist in other ways. That might include giving advice and sending supplies, perhaps including flak jackets.
If they help the rebels, will they fuel a civil war, or worse, a sectarian civil war? If they do not, how can the killings in Homs, and elsewhere, be stopped?
The longer this continues, the more bodies pile up, the greater the desire for revenge on both sides. Civil war is not inevitable. But Homs today could be Syria tomorrow.
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23 February 2012 Last updated at 11:56 GMT
There is an end of an era feeling in Kabul these days - for what Afghans see as the latest foreign venture in their country.
They have seen off the Russians and the British before and now it is America's time that is drawing to a close, with the British and other Nato allies eager to depart with them.
The revelation that US troops had dumped copies of the Koran into an incineration pit may hasten that end.
At the very least, it has provided an open goal for the Taliban and anyone else who wants to provoke anti-American and anti-foreigner sentiments.
There are few more emotive issues in Afghanistan than allegations of the Islamic holy book being desecrated.
It has triggered violent disturbances as far back as 2005 - even when the claims of the Koran being mishandled have not been substantiated.
'Same mistakes'Last year, at least 10 people were killed in Mazar-e Sharif after news reached Afghanistan of an extremist American pastor burning a Koran in faraway Florida.
They are making the "same mistakes as the Russians" says Afghan analyst Omar Safi - failing to respect the Muslim religion.
"No-one should die because of a few books being set on fire," one Afghan official told me on condition of anonymity.
But "that is no excuse" he said, for American actions.
Even people still well-disposed towards them cannot believe how they could have allowed this to happen, after more than a decade here and many previous mistakes.
Never before have the Americans apologised so quickly and so profusely as this time - but it sounds hollow to many Afghans.
From recent episodes of troops urinating on Taliban bodies to the many instances of civilians being killed over the past 11 years, attitudes towards the Americans have progressively hardened.
There is also widespread frustration at how little has changed, despite the huge quantities of money that have poured in here.
In the main battleground areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan, there are fewer outdoor wedding parties these days - because they have been bombed so many times by US pilots who think they are seeing Taliban gatherings from thousands of feet up.
The US and its Nato allies rightly argue the Taliban kill far more civilians with their suicide and other attacks.
But the Americans are the ones who claim to uphold the highest standards. What is more, the US doctrine is supposed to be "to protect the population". So this is how they are judged.
And as has been said so many times in the past, there is no military solution in Afghanistan. It is ultimately a battle for perceptions.
More conspiratorially-minded Afghans find it hard to believe these Korans were burnt by mistake.
US troops must have done it deliberately, some say, to create instability - so they can stay longer.
For the moment though, it is the Americans who are on the defensive - giving the much-criticised government of President Hamid Karzai some relief.