[ gunfire ] homs, syria. a people under siege. >> this right here, it just speaks for itself.

>> reporter: bombarded for months. picked off by snipers. food and supplies running out. medical care, impossible. >> this is the story of a cnn team that got into syria's most dangerous city. to reach a handful of citizens risking their lives every day. to see firsthand, to bear witness, and to tell the world about the suffering, the grief, and the courage of homs. this is the account of "72 hours under fire."

[ explosion ] >> reporter: for more than a year, the regime of dictator bashar al assad have used brutal force to put down a popular uprising in syria. across the country, protesters demanded change, chanting, "down with the regime." >> this is homs. you can see over there another rocket landed on one of the civilian's houses. >> reporter: the city of homs became the beating heart of a growing uprising. but the syrian military sealed off one neighborhood as it tried to crush the revolt.

>> the assad regime is shelling relentlessly these neighborhoods. there are snipers positioned in areas that are, you know, killing people as they try to leave their homes. >> it's a civilian neighborhood where people were living normal civilian lives, being bombarded on a massive scale by its own armed forces. >> reporter: for four months, a debate continued at cnn. how, when, and if to get into homs and baba arwa. >> it was in november that i pushed forward this notion and other trips have gotten canceled

for various reasons. sometimes the plug was pulled at the last minute. >> we have to weigh the risks. for me, homs was the ground zero on the serious story. no doubt about that. >> no story is worth dying for, but at the same time, when it comes to a story like syria, and others as well, you have to be there. you have to be in it, seeing it, smelling it, listening to it, so that you at the end of the day can do justice to what the people are suffering. heartbreaking footage shows that no one seems to have been spared the violence. adults and children, also. >> arwa damon was leading the charge on this. she was very big on that story. arabic speaker. tough, brave, resourceful. as determined as we've got. >> reporter: early in february, news emerged from homs of intense and indiscriminate shelling by regime forces. >> the death toll on monday utterly devastating.

the majority of the casualties happening in the flash point city of homs. my colleague, amir turned to me and said, i think there's a massacre happening in homs. every day there's a death toll. and suddenly the death toll in that one particular neighborhood of homs had gone up to over 100. [ speaking foreign language ] >> reporter: videos uploaded showed terrible suffering and great courage. >> there were very few voices coming out, and two of the loudest and strongest voices were with dr. mohammad and dr. abi. they ran the underground medical clinic with only 15 others. but they would still go on video every single day and say, this is my case. this is why this person was injured and this is what i need to treat them. but i can't. [ speaking foreign language ]

>> reporter: plans were revived to get a cnn team into homs. along with arwa damon, neil holsworth, a veteran journalist. he's faced in worse in iraq, afghanistan and israel. and handling security, tim crockette, former british special forces and an expert in balancing safety with front line news coverage. >> for me, that was a very experienced, highly accomplished team. these are your determined and strong-willed individuals. but they're also smart individuals. >> we got the call, we just had to refresh the same sort of things, what are we trying to achieve? what are we are going to go for. >> i had a backpack, basically. >> you mapped it out in every sense. >> do we have the right communication system, how are we going to track this team?

>> who are we going with? how are we getting there? >> if someone gets injured, what are we going to do? but i will say this. with all the preparation we do and all the things we've set up and all the backstops we have, you're going into a war zone. you are on your own. >> i went to see my mom when it seemd like this trip was going to materialize and my dad was out of town, but i went to see my mom and spent some time with her and i actually wrote a letter for the first time to my family and i went to see some very close friends as well, just in case. >> what was it about this trip? >> there was a lot of unknown going in. you know, sometimes you just get that gut feeling. >> you're nodding. >> you know, i didn't really go and say good-bye to anyone or anything like that, but probably one of the reasons why i didn't, i didn't want to think of it like that. so i tried to block that part of it out of my mind, really. >> we sat down as a team, we talked it through.

at each point we tried to decide, what are we trying to achieve here? what could happen? >> we went in knowing the risk we were taking and were prepared to do that for the story. >> every scenario considered meticulous planning, but ultimately, arwa, neil, and tim would have to rely on others in their journey into a city under siege. >> it involves a fairly elaborate process of being moved through farmlands, back roads, trying to avoid the government and ending up at various safe houses. and at every single leg, every single stop, you have a different person who's responsible to move you on. someone who knows the details of the lay of the land around you. >> reporter: as the team left for homs, those at cnn headquarters were holding their breath. >> they have moved out of that safe house. >> at one point when they had just crossed the border, the truck stopped on the other side of the field on the dirt road, and for a journalist, that's a bad place to be.

>> reporter: alone, on a dirt road, in the middle of the night. a worrying start to a mission full of danger. [ male announcer ] if you were building the perfect laptop, you'd use carbon fiber and machined aluminum, to make it more beautiful, and more durable. you'd use edge-to-edge gorilla glass for a stunning display in a more compact form. and you'd choose an intel® core i7™ processor for maximum processing power. everything that you could ever want in a laptop. introducing the dell xps 13 ultrabook™ everything. and more. ♪

everything. and more. greetings from the people here sure are friendly but some have had a hard time understanding my accent. so to make sure people get every word of the geico savings message i've been practicing how to talk like a true chicagoan. switching to geico could save you hundreds of dollars on car insurance... da bears. haha... you people sure do talk funny. geico®. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.

metamucil uses super hard working psyllium fiber, which gels to remove unsexy waste and reduce cholesterol. taking psyllium fiber won't make you a model but you should feel a little more super. metamucil. down with cholesterol. will be giving away passafree copies of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. there was no front line in homs. nowhere that could be called safe. and getting in without getting caught would be perilous. the cnn team had made it out of the field and through the night.

then just inside the syrian border, the first signs of hardship and conflict. >> for nearly a week now, there has not been a single loaf of bread produced here. there is no flour. and that is because flour is subsidized by the government. its distribution, fully in the control of the regime. and they are not sending supplies out here anymore. >> reporter: in this safe house along the way, opposition forces held a man who said he killed for the al assad regime. >> they gave us guns with scopes and you see the body as if you're looking at yourself in the mirror. he could see the protesters were unarmed, but he fired anyway, claiming it was kill or be killed for not carrying out orders. >> reporter: to get into the besieged neighborhood of baba amr, the cnn team followed a secret route. >> some of these routes are the only way that they have to get whatever meager medical supplies they're getting in. and more importantly, to evacuate the wounded, because

they can't treat them. >> reporter: for the thousands trapped in baba amr, the route was their only precious lifeline. and keeping it secret meant keeping the cameras off. >> if we'd been caught and they got our footage, it would have compromised everybody. it's not worth it. these activists, the opposition, they're risking everything. to have that jeopardized because we wanted to film something, that's completely out of the question. >> reporter: handed from one opposition group to the next, it would take days for arwa, neil, and tim to reach the besieged city. >> how long did it take to get to homs? >> five days. >> five days. and if you wanted to, i don't know, just pick up and drive there without any of this. how long would it take? >> a couple hours. >> a couple hours. what do you find when you go in there? what's the sense of the place? >> looking around, it's dark, there's no lights.

it's one of the eeriest -- the eeriest place i've ever been, i can tell you. >> what are you thinking, then? >> well, it's trying to assess what we're coming into. it's 3:00 in the morning, the shelling is about to start in a few hours time. we really hadn't slept much the day before, and we really didn't sleep much in the few hours before the bombardment started. and it started almost on the dot. and it was quite intense. >> describe how it unfolded. >> well, we're basically lying on the floor in this room. we've got our equipment around us. then, you just start hearing explosions around you. some were in the distance and all of a sudden, one would be right out in the street. it was very random in its nature. >> the shelling started as it does, just about every single morning, with daybreak. and it's pretty much nonstop. and this is why the cry we're hearing from the streets here

is, please, please, do something to stop the violence. >> you were in special forces. how did this rate, this whole experience? >> we had more incoming rounds within the first ten minutes than in the seven months that i was in bosnia in the war. >> here we have just one of many buildings that has been hit in this artillery barrage. >> reporter: when the bombardment eased, the team could see for the first time exactly what had happened to homs. >> the streets are mostly deserted. the majority of residents are staying indoors or have already fled. you always wonder what life is like for people in these places. and you're driving through, and it's mostly deserted. most of the buildings have sustained some sort of damage. to see the roof on that one -- and then you'll see a kid peek

their head out from a doorway, or you'll see a man walking in the street, carrying an ak over his shoulder and a bag of diapers over the other. and there's all these people and you want to go out and speak to them, how did they survive for this long, what were they going through? what was going on? or you'd walk into houses that were covered in a layer of dust and there'd be all these kids' shoes outside. just the constant sound of gunfire, it's nonstop. and then street after street after street of rubble, just like this. we come across some members of the free syrian army who take us around. this is another spot that you can also see the government influence on.

>> there was one point with the free syrian army, there was a hole in the wall, and when you pull back from there, there was a kid's winnie the pooh backpack on the side of the bed. and they had just left, you know. it's kind of hard to see, sometimes. you know, whole families just uprooted and disappeared. >> personal belongings are all still inside. >> you do get angry. i know you. you get real mad. >> i do. there's no way to answer their questions of why is this happening to us? why isn't the world helping us? how many more of us have to die? why is our life worth nothing? >> emotions is an important part of storytelling. you don't want the reaction to become the story. but it is part of the story. you are as a viewer is going to empathize with that. this isn't a manufactured emotion. this is based on, i've been here, i've seen this.

>> reporter: for the cnn team, the destruction in the streets was bad enough. but the desperation of the injured would be even more shocking. [ speaking foreign language ] [ male announcer ] this is lawn ranger -- eden prairie, minnesota. in here, the landscaping business grows with snow. to keep big winter jobs on track, at&t provided a mobile solution that lets everyone from field workers to accounting, initiate, bill, and track work in real time. you can't live under a dome in minnesota, that's why there's guys like me. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪

forty years ago, he wasn't looking for financial advice. back then, he had something more important to do. he wasn't focused on his future but fortunately, somebody else was. at usaa we provide retirement planning for our military, veterans and their families. now more than ever, it's important to get financial advice from people who share your military values. call now for our free guide and tips on planning

for your retirement this tax season.

on the horizon, thick smoke billows from a sabotaged gas pipeline. this is the war zone that homs has become. >> cnn's arwa damon, neil hallsworth and tim crockett are

in baba amr, a neighborhood that's endured continuous shelling, where civilians are killed and wounded every day. where a makeshift clinic tries to help. >> we're here with the doctor who is been on numerous youtube videos throughout this uprising, and now we're getting a firsthand look of exactly what he and his team are up against. a 30-year-old man lies on the brink of death after shrapnel hit him in the head. [ speaking foreign language ] he will die if he doesn't get out. >> reporter: dr. mohammad is one of only two doctors in this clinic. the other is actually a dentist. >> dr. mohammad, he's not some sort of front line, trained in

emergency combat medic. he's an internal medicine specialist. and now look at what he's dealing with. look at the kind of casualties he's dealing with. the way he's had to cope. and the fact that it's day in and day out for him. it's relentless. the doctor is just saying that this is a patient that has to get outside of baba amr within 24 hours or else his leg most definitely is going to need to be amputated. >> you saw some horrific wounds, all of you, in these places. and the guy with the leg wound, you're saying it had started to smell. >> his name was mohammad nohr, and he was actually wounded, and this is how a lot of people have been getting wounded, artillery strike happens, people get wounded in the street, other people run out to help him, and bam, the second shell. so he got wounded when a second shell struck. at this point, you can smell the rot coming from the wound.

this patient has been lying here like this for four days now. >> arwa interviewed one of the doctors, the few doctors that was taking care of people that were being wounded in this onslaught. and he started to cry. [ speaking foreign language ] >> here's one doctor, one man in there crying out on a daily basis that he needs help, his patients need help. he's seen who knows how many people at this point in time die. because he can't give them what they need. lack of equipment, lack of experience, lack of medicine. and they can't get them out. >> reporter: the clinic is really many clinics spread throughout the city and moving

from location to location is perilous. >> this is how they have to move around a short distance from get from one location to the other where they have the patient. six patients were killed in this building after a strike. the shelling is relentless. what they've had to do, because the clinics keep getting targeted, is try to distribute the patients around, so they have a number of houses in the vicinity where they also have these makeshift clinics as well. >> what's it like filming that? >> well, you've got to be respectful. so it's kind of tough filming, to show how bad it is and two, not to intrude too much. so, you know, it is tough. >> reporter: every patient is desperate to tell their story by any means possible. this man, tracing the shape of a tank on the wall. >> this is abad and he's been drawing, trying to explain to us what happened, because he's in so much agony, he can't speak.

he is one of the cameraman who goes out, risks his life all the time. it's some of his clips we constantly see posted to youtube and broadcast, and he's been drawing two tanks and explaining how he was moving down the street across from them when they fired at him. >> i've seen injuries, wounds in my career, but i think what really struck me was the fact that they had nothing. few medicines, dressings, and stuff on shelves. other than that, there was nothing. nothing to deal with the kinds of wounds that they were getting. >> aboudi was a 19-year-old man. we found him inside the clinic. he was barely hanging on. there was this young woman who was treating him. she was 27 years old. she also was a volunteer medic. they'd just had two weeks of training, and you could hear the

anger, the frustration, the sorrow, the sheer emotion in her voice when she was talking about how this was a young man, just at the beginning of his life. he was actually engaged to be married. and he had volunteered to help the wounded and he found himself in a hospital bed as well. [ speaking foreign language ] >> reporter: just hours after this video was taken, aboudi died. as did the 30-year-old with the severe head wound. >> you get angry that people have the capability to do this to one another. that people are suffering and that there's nothing that one can do to ease their pain. there's no way to fix their situation. >> reporter: but there is some good news.

at least two of the men in the cnn team's report are alive. abad, who communicated through drawing, made it to a hospital in lebanon. so, too, did mohammad moore. >> he did, actually, manage to get out, but not in time. the last i heard was that, yes, his leg was going to have to be amputated. >> reporter: what may never be known are the fates of hundreds of other people who were unable or unwilling to flee. >> it was so indiscriminate, it was so widespread. and it's hard to put into words that every single person that you meet there has gone through something so horrific. no other human being would ever want to go through it. this is an rc robotic claw. my high school science teacher made me what i am today. our science teacher helped us build it. ♪ now i'm a geologist at chevron, and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller.

over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars into american education. that's thousands of kids learning to love science. ♪ isn't that cool? and that's pretty cool. ♪ ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about the cookie-cutter retirement advice ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 you get at some places. ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 they say you have to do this, have that, invest here ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 you know what? ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 you can't create a retirement plan based on ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 a predetermined script.

ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 to understand you and your goals... ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 ...so together we can find real-life answers for your ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 real-life retirement. ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 talk to chuck ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 and let's write a script based on your life story. ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 have 46 grams of whole grains... mmmm. ...and a touch of sweetness. you'll be delighted to discover how good they taste.

when cnn's arwa damon, neil hallsworth, and tim crockett ventured into the streets of homs -- [ gunfire ] >> it's just nonstop, the gunfire. >> reporter: they were met with the sounds of war and scenes of desolation. >> it's not deserted. there are thousands of people there. >> they are. and a lot of them are staying in doors. the mosques were putting out messages, actually, when the bombardment started, telling people to not live on the upper floors of their buildings. to try to stay away from windows. to try to find protected rooms inside their homes. a lot of families also moved into bunkers. these aren't real bunkers. they're actually just the basements that are only located in a few of the buildings and homes around here. so all the families that haven't been able to escape stay in them.

so this is hamad, who has been telling us that there were around 250 people that were staying in this one room. half of them have actually fled in the last 24 hours, because they heard that this particular location was going to get targeted. and those that have stayed are literally the ones that have absolutely nowhere, nowhere at all to go. [ speaking foreign language ] >> they huddle in near darkness. >> and it's cold, because it's cold this time of year. and most of the houses that we went through were either heated by oil-fired, a fire stove in the middle of the room or wood fire. and, obviously, that's one of

the resources that's been cut off by the government. they haven't got heating oil being provided into that part of the neighborhood, or into the city. >> they're constantly at the tip of this abyss of fear. that fear that, you know, you go through through these periods of time, they've by living this for months. she's been here since the end of august. another woman, this one right here, has been here for a month and a half. in these makeshift bunkers we were in, almost every single woman who came up to talk to us, and they would pull you in every single direction, because all of them had something they wanted to share. >> reporter: arwa and her team visited another bunker inside a wood-cutting factory, another temporary refuge from the shelling. but in homs, there was no place to hide from sadness and

suffering. >> this baby is cradled in her grandmother's arms. the image of innocence, although the world she was just brought into is anything but. in the shelter, we basically met three generations of one family. the baby who had just been born, her name was fatima, she was just 24 hours old when we met her. her mother, who was in her late teens, it was her second child, and she had to give birth in the bunker with no painkillers, no nothing. she says her husband left a month ago to get supplies and hasn't been able to get back. he doesn't know he's a father. the baby has two great uncles she will never meet. both detained and returned as mutilated corpses. it was a sight you don't want to see. her grandmother's voice trembles as she describes how one of her brother's neck was broken, his

skin peeled off. we've just been given a photograph of her second brother that was detained and the state that she received his corpse in and it's absolutely horrific. [ speaking foreign language ] >> they'd all lost husbands, brothers, who knows. at one point, it was like being in a bunker full of widows and orphans. her brother and husband were killed when a round struck their home ten days ago, but she can hardly pause to grieve. i was looking at this woman and wondering, how is it that she can form a cohesive sentence, how can she speak logically? how is she not completely beside herself with grief and ripping her hair out? because she has to keep it together. she has kids and they're living in a bunker and she has no choice.

i've just been given this book that has a list of all the names of everyone here. there's 315 of them, marked next to each one of them are their age and whether they need basics like diapers and baby's milk, which is in short supply, of course. and this here is a list of the medicines that they need. and a lot of it is very basic. painkillers and things to deal with colds, flu, especially for the children. >> you feel helpless -- you feel like you want to do something? >> yeah. i wanted to go back in there with a team, of medical specialists, with everything that we could carry to try to help support them. >> this woman is in complete fear. she doesn't want us to use her name. she doesn't want to speak. she doesn't want to show her face. another woman was holding her baby, who was just crying, crying, crying. she said, he has a fever, he's sick. feel his face. there's no medicine for him.

[ speaking foreign language ] there is nothing that one can do to ease their pain. there's no way to fix their situation. there's no way to answer their questions. there's no way to answer their questions, and why is this happening to us? why isn't the world helping us? how many more of us have to die? why is our life worth nothing? >> what did my child do? >> exactly. what's the mother supposed to tell her child about why his father died? >> i think it affects you more, because you obviously speak arabic. i don't think the emotions were pushed on to us as much as they were on to arwa. >> the emotion's an important part of story telling. our team was looking at arwa, who's a great professional, and you could tell that this was really impacting her. but there's no doubt in my mind that she was being shaken by what she had seen there. >> if we cannot have a certain level of compassion that is reasonably translated into our reporting, how can we expect

people, thousands of miles, kilometers away, sitting in their living room to even begin to relate to what it is they are seeing on their tv screen? you're always wondering if you've done someone's pain enough justice. if you've done what they've been through enough justice. okay, team! after age 40, we can start losing muscle -- 8% every 10 years. wow. wow. but you can help fight muscle loss with exercise and ensure muscle health. i've got revigor. what's revigor? it's the amino acid metabolite, hmb to help rebuild muscle and strength naturally lost over time. [ female announcer ] ensure muscle health has revigor and protein to help protect, preserve,

and promote muscle health. keeps you from getting soft. [ major nutrition ] ensure. nutrition in charge! in here, the landscaping business grows with snow. to keep big winter jobs on track, at&t provided a mobile solution that lets everyone from field workers to accounting, initiate, bill, and track work in real time. you can't live under a dome in minnesota, that's why there's guys like me. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪

homs, syria. dawn. >> there's ongoing gunfire throughout the entire day. >> reporter: cnn's arwa damon, neil hallsworth, and tim crockett, it was day two covering the unfolding tragedy.

>> and the bombardment started, and at one point, there was a deferent kind of explosion, or a different kind of noise. and i thought, that was odd. it lasted a little bit longer, and i thought it was two or three impacts coming at the same time or in short succession. a little later, it happened again. it wasn't until the third time it happened that i suddenly realized what it was. it was thunder, but mixed in with the explosions, it was just a different experience. and it brought a smile to my face, lying there sort of in the darkness. >> reporter: a light moment that would be short-lived. soon, a rocket slammed into the house, just two floors above them. >> it hit us. it hit our house. there is something burning, the voice on the tape cries out. the media house in baba amr has been hit. cut off the live camera, someone shouts. they have discovered our position!

but nothing, they swear, will shut them down. >> reporter: undeterred, the activists soldier on. >> there was one time where they were typing on the computer, and a rocket hit the house, and the lights went out, and you know, the place shook and they just carried on typing like nothing had happened. >> we survey the damage. to get to the upper floors, you really have to hug the wall, because there's the one window that's exposed, but this is where you really see the full impacts of the damage that was caused by the incoming rounds. i mean, this right here, it just speaks for itself. one of the neighbors was in, she was there with her father. she was just a 9-year-old girl, and the rounds are impacting pretty closely, the guys are all on their computers, and she's just kind of in the corner. and at one point, i called her over to come sit on the couch, but she sat frozen. and i tried to go over to hug her, but she was so frozen, she

couldn't move. she just sat there like this, and there were tears streaming down her face. this floor's obviously been completely trashed, and the activists were telling us that the bombardment, they keep hearing it over and over again, the sounds of artillery falling, is nothing compared to what they've been through before. but this was once an ordinary home, an ordinary family lived here. and we don't know what their story was. there's just bits and pieces of their lives have that be left behind, including this children's toy. what happened to that family? what exactly was it that made them leave? are they alive? there's still much still that we don't know and still so much that needs to be told. >> reporter: but hearing and telling those stories requires strategy.

how do you move? tim, you're obviously looking around for things that -- >> very carefully. >> yeah. >> we never went out when the bombardment was at its most intense. typically, i would start 7:00, 7:30 in the morning and carry through to anywhere between 12:00 and 1:00. >> reporter: the syrian activists dared to show the world that they were under siege. >> one of the biggest accomplishments for the media team here was getting up a live stream so that they could show the world exactly what was happening in realtime. and they believed that this really aggravated the syrian government. now, this is one of the live cameras that they had set up outside. and they're telling us that it

was shot by a sniper's bullet, that went in right there and then came out the other end. this particular group that we were with, the baba amr media team, they're young. they're all in their 20s, you know? they all had different lives a year ago, and they're so brave. they're so brave. [ explosion ] they crawl on their bellies to try to get that shot of the tank to prove to the world that there are tanks in a certain location or whatever it is they're trying to prove. they're uploading youtube videos, they're putting messages out on facebook, on twitter. they're making themselves available for reports. >> many of them have family members that, obviously, have been seriously injured or killed as well. so knowing all that and yet keep going out each day with their cameras to get the footage that they are, it's amazing. what they're doing, it's for their children, for their families, all these sort of things that until we ever find

ourselves in that circumstances, we can't really relate to. [ speaking foreign language ] >> the syrian army is shelling the city of cold, starving civilians. >> reporter: also getting the message out was veteran war correspondent, marie colvin, reporting for the "sunday times" of london. >> i was so star struck by her, actually, just because of everything that she'd done. her passion, her desire to tell the story. >> marie, you have covered a lot of conflicts over a long time. how does this compare? >> this is the worst, anderson. for many reasons. the last one -- i mean, i think the last time we talked when i

was in misrata, there's nowhere to run. you can sort of figure out where snipers are, but you can't figure out where, you know, where a shell is going to land. >> reporter: on the cnn team's third night in baba amr, word spread that a ground offensive by the syrian military was imminent. >> it became clear that it was very difficult to find any place of safety there. safety was a relative term. the risks were building on that assignment. >> reporter: the risks were building. >> go! >> reporter: and time seemed to be running out. forty years ago, he wasn't looking for financial advice. back then, he had something more important to do. he wasn't focused on his future but fortunately, somebody else was. at usaa we provide retirement planning for our military,

veterans and their families. now more than ever, it's important to get financial advice from people who share your military values. call now for our free guide and tips on planning for your retirement this tax season. the passat is one of nine volkswagen models named a 2012 iihs top safety pick. not...that... we'd ever brag about it... turn right. come on, nine. turn left. hit the brakes. huh? how did that get there? [ male announcer ] we can't hide how proud we are to have nine top safety picks like the passat and jetta. so we're celebrating with our "safety in numbers" event. that's the power of german engineering. right now lease the 2012 jetta for $159 a month. so i used my citi thank you card to pick up some accessories. a new belt. some nylons. and what girl wouldn't need new shoes? we talked about getting a diamond. but with all the thank you points i've been earning... ♪

...i flew us to the rock i really had in mind. ♪ [ male announcer ] the citi thank you card. earn points you can use for travel on any airline, with no blackout dates.

homs, syria. for months, activists in this media house had risked everything to capture and share with the world the shocking images of what was happening to their city. >> we're not animals. we're human beings. we're asking for help. >> reporter: now the team in the media house, including cnn's arwa damon, neil hallsworth, and tim crockett, have intel that things were about to get even more dangerous. >> we had been in there for almost three days at this point,

and there was credible information that something was going to happen that would be very detrimental to our being -- >> yeah. we all sat down. everyone was part of the discussion about, look, talking through all the options that, you know, could, would, may, may not happen. >> reporter: in homs and at cnn headquarters, the teams discussed the deteriorating conditions. >> we're hearing that things were heating up more than they were in those past few days. >> the government knew about this media center. it had been a target. the building had been hit the day before on the third floor. >> as careful as we were, as calculated as every move was, there are some things you cannot safeguard against. a rocket coming out of nowhere, there's nothing you can do. >> and it's a difficult decision, because arwa wanted to stay. she felt she was really doing important journalism. but sometimes you just have to say, it's time to go.

>> there's a sniper -- >> reporter: time to go for the cnn team and journalist marie colvin and paul conroy. >> at one point in the route, it's incredibly muddy. it's pouring rain. it's freezing cold. and there's this like part where i just completely -- i face-planted in the mud. and then i was trying to lift myself back up, and my little legs are kind of going like this to get traction, i couldn't, and i finally get up and, bam, i face-plant again. and murray had face-planted and and we end up sitting together in this truck with a professional gut herder turned i'm going to smuggle you through the farmland guy. and marie and i were just laughing. i mean, nothing about what we had been through was funny, nothing about what we had seen was funny, but we were just laughing. >> when you had left, you were riding around on the back of a motorcycle? >> it could be a truck, could be a taxi, could be the back of a motorcycle.

it's, what is available, what is the safest point at that time, or what they feel is the safest thing. it's not one way in and one way out. >> reporter: and getting out of homs would be just as dangerous as getting in. but so often on these stories, when you think you're through the worst of it, there's a nasty surprise. >> it would take two anxious days and then, finally, good news. >> they crossed the border. it was like, whoo! wow. >> but marie, paul, photographer remy, and other western journalists soon reversed course. >> marie went out, but she went back. >> she did. she had actually only been there for 24 hours, and she had this need to go back, to not leave these people behind. to tell even more of their stories than she had the opportunity to tell. i wanted to go back. i don't think we did enough.

i don't even think we did nearly enough. >> i understand that frustration. from my point of view, i have to be more pragmatic. i have to say, i think we've achieved a remarkable amount. >> it's important that we're able to go back and tell the story. and that's why we pull out when we pull out. it's a family. and that's the most important thing. everybody knows how much everybody cares, and that their safety truly is our highest priority. >> we got the sad news early this morning that marie colvin, foreign correspondent for "the sunday times" of london was killed in homs where the syrian government unleashed an all-out assault on its citizens. an award-winning french war photographer, remi ochlik was also killed. he was just 28 years old. >> it's tragic, but, it's also -- unfortunately, it happens. >> does it makes you think about what you were doing there, more?

>> did i have second thoughts about having gone there? no. not for a second. if journalism were governed by that sort of fear, we journalists would never be anywhere. and things would happen in complete and total black holes. >> the last thing that those front line troops want is that when a tragedy happens, it makes us less willing to do this kind of storytelling. it makes us less willing to go to where the story is. >> it takes a special type of person to do this type of thing. what kind of person is that? it's a person that's passionate about telling the truth. >> i think the worry of arwa and others is that the story of homs will be forgotten, that the suffering will be forgotten. but we are committed to this story. we will continue to find ways of doing this story and bringing this story to people. it's really important. >> the one thing that we

absolutely can not do is walk away from this story, no matter how long it takes. it is fundamentally unfair that we live in a world where we can go film this, report on it, and leave. knowing that the people we've left behind, suffering is going to continue. feeling as if we should have done more, we could have done more. maybe there was a better way to tell the story, that would have had more impact, that would have brought them the help that they need. you're always constantly second-guessing how you've done things and whether or not you could have accomplished more with what you've done. and yes, that does play out in your mind. and it should. and you should tell the stories of the people that you've met. because you've witnessed it, and that's your responsibility, to keep telling their story.