jim muir has been watching the latest developments in syria. let's see his report. >> video footage posted on the internet after government shelling hit a field hospital in the baba amr district of homs. there was pandemonium. the dead strewn the floors. activists say this is the most bombardment since the uprising broke out last mars. the doctor tries to revive one of the wounded. i watched a 3-year-old rule by after we pulled her of the rubble, this man said. activists say the security forces are using heavier caliber artillery than ever before in bringing up tanks and troops. there has been no attack on the ground so far. syrian state tv had its own version of events. it also showed gruesome pictures from homs in what it called tourist-armed groups have launched attacks there and fi red mortars into other areas. it also reporting clashes to the northwest into the west of damascus. it is beginning to look increasingly like a civil war. that's the way the russians see if. they're sending the foreign minister to damascus on tuesday. >> [speakin

jim muir reports from beirut in laboring lebanon.ç >> aleppo had been largely untouched by the uprising, and now this. two huge bomb blasts in quick succession. state television swiftly began broadcasting gruesome live footage of bodiesç and human remains. the bombs went off near security buildings, but civilians seemed to have made up the bulk of the casualties. the government blamedñr terrorists, activists that the regime did it to discredit the uprising. further south towards damascus, the battle goes on for parts of homs, the third city. activists reported more shelling and deaths. they're expecting an all-out ground assault, but it hasn't happened yet. >> why isn't the world helping us? where's the humanity in the where's the u.n.? why isn't anyone doing anything about this? these animals, these are civilian houses over there. are these -- >> conditions are said to be getting increasingly desperate after days of bombardment with quick queues for bread and other medical supplies running out. president obama has said what's happe

. >> jim muir, thank you. >> thank you. >> let's take a look at some of the other headlines around the world. it appears egyptian authorities have arrested seif al-adel at the cairo airport. he was a major figure in osama bin laden's inner circle. joining me now with more on this story is our correspondent in cairo. jon, how important is this arrest? >> well, apparently, according to egyptian sources, he was temporarily in charge of al qaeda after osama bin laden's death. of course now another is now, but he has been on the run since the 1980's. he joined egyptian islamic jihad and were fighting inside the country of egypt against the egyptian government. and then moved to al qaeda and fought mostly the west. at the moment, he was on his way to pakistan when he landed in cairo where it's reported the egyptian authorities had a tipoff or maybe just decided to give himself up. but now, according to authorities, they have him in custody. >> thank you. now, it's been a good night for presidential hopeful mitt romney. he claimed victory in michigan and arizona. michigan was seen as vital fo

jim muir has the latest. jim? >> it has been among the heaviest bombardments baba amr has undergone. the from the live extremely rare getting from there, it would shell after shell, -- the life stream -- the live stream we were getting from there, it was show after show. the events of the day, to put it in some context, let's look at this report. >> but armond went on relentlessly. hundreds of shells and rockets slammed into baba amr, which has been under siege for more than two weeks. several hundred rebels fighters from the free syrian army are entrenched here. many civilians are also trapped. some of them are paying the price. at the improvised field hospitals, doctors are struggling to save the lives of the wounded, including this baby hit by shrapnel from an exploding rockets. activists said some buildings were reduced to rubble by the intensity of the shelling. tanks and armored vehicles were on the move in the district immediately adjacent to baba amr, but it's not clear if it was the big ground offensive t

." >> i'm joined now on the line in beirut from jim muir, a friend of marie colvin. jim, marie was no stranger to violent situations and many would describe her as fearless. even she realized she was in a pretty harmful position. >> i saw her many times before she went to homs. she passed through beirut. i would say she was nervous about this trip but a very courageous person. she told me very bad things are happening and we have to tell the world about it. we have to report it. >> am i right in saying ineffectively what was an international media compound, however makeshift it was? >> yes. it seemed to be a makeshift media center hit by several shells. we had been praying the bodies we were seeing were not her but the evidence is now mounting that it was. and it's very hard to deny it now. but as i say, she was no strange tore danger. marie was really courageous. she wore an eye patch, because she lost an eye in sli langa and had post traumatic stress syndrome so badly that she had to have therapy afterwards. >> and she was one of these people, jim, who held no punch

the bbc's jim muir is with us. what do we know? >> well paul conroy were -- was smuggled out late on monday during the day. and then during the night, he was smuggled back across the lebanese border, probably the same route they took to get in there, traveling with opposition people. now ambassador officials here who have been working hard to bring a resolution to this issue have now confirmed he is now safe and well in lebanon. we do not know exactly where he is and when he will head home, but we assume he will fairly quickly make his way back to his home and family. >> and the newspaper -- another newspaper has had a worker injured? >> well, we can't confirm she, too, has come back across the border, but she was a trickier case, because of the nature of her injury, which is a very complicated fracture of her left leg, which had to be kept straight, so really she probably should have had a proper ambulance to take her out. but it seems they decided not to do that and get her back by unofficial means. we can't confirm that 100% but

. >> jim muir is in beirut. we don't want to speculate in a way that might endanger anybody in homs, but can you clarify anything about the fate of the journalists beyond what james has said? >> we know pretty much for sure that paul conroy is out, but three others are not accounted for. edith bouvier, a french correspondent seriously injured. very difficult to move her because her leg was fractured. two others, a french journalist named william daniels and javier espinosa, who is a spanish journalist, they are trapped in homs in a district that is coming under heavy attack. there had been reports that edith bouvier and had crossed the border into lebanon. that has not been confirmed. we believe she is probably still inside homs, although we cannot confirm anything. ordon't know if she is out the other two. that is the situation. >> we heard in that report, talking about the international community will not stand by, will not allow a couple crimes to go unpunished. presumably, the syrian regime that is beyond ca

let's speak now to the bbc's jim muir, who joins us from beirut in neighboring lebanon. can you give us any more, jim, as to what is being said about the referendum at this stage? >> well, a lot of the articles coming out about the constitution, which is quite complicated, bit how you can actually hold a referendum in the current circumstances remains to be seen. the country is in a fair degree of turmoil. there are hostilities reports from practically all parts of the country, from the north you can from the middle, from around damascus to the south. i mean, it's really quite hard to see how such a complicated operation as a credible referendum could be organized at such short notice, in such difficult circumstances, symbolized by that huge hall of smoke hanging over homs, or pumping up into the sky over homs, hours and hours after that pipeline was hit by either the government side or rebels, depending on whose version you believe. so, there's a lot to be said about the constitution. i can tell you more if you want, but it's going to be really quite hard to see a refere

jim muir is monitoring developments across syria from beirut, and he's in neighboring lebanon. he talks about the role russia wishes to play. >> the russians are under pressure. their foreign minister is arriving on tuesday in damascus, and he will be seeing the staff, and he's bringing with him the russian head -- the head of the c.i.a., basically, and they will presume be trying to urge restraint, although the government does seem certainly reflected in its papers to be regarding the u.n. veto by the russian and chinese as a carte blanche to go ahead on the ground and try to finish off the resistance. while the russians are talking approximate a political solution, they would like to get the protested reforms that mr. assad has supposedly launched and sped up and made more real. they would also like some kind of dialogue going with the opposition, but they're not at all well placed to preside over that, because the relations with the opposition were already bad, and they've been made worse by the veto on saturday at the security council. >> now, a factory in the pakistani cit