Riots And Revolutions: Nel's Arab Journey s01e02 Episode Script
Episode 2
I'm Nel Hedayat.
I'm from London but I watched the news as revolutions spread across the Arab world with young people right at the heart of them.
I've been amazed by how people came together to overthrow governments and change their world.
Now I'm going on a journey to meet them.
I've never been around when they've celebrated with live gunfire! Do you feel bad for the people you killed? No.
They had it coming.
They tortured your son? This is four hours away on a flight from London.
I find the revolutions are still going on They'll get shot! The police are shooting protesters.
It's all flowing this way.
It feels like burning.
And I'll get caught up in the heart of events The Syrian army's seen me.
We are being killed, being slaughtered.
As I find myself alongside people still fighting for freedom.
Just to be standing here in the middle of a revolution this is what it is! I've seen riots on the streets of Egypt and Bahrain.
Now I'm going to look at Libya and Syria to see what happens when people pick up guns and start shooting back.
Oh, my God.
This is Tripoli, the capital of Libya.
So far it's the only country in the Arab Spring to overthrow their Government with a civil war.
I'm here to find out how they can rebuild their lives and their country.
I'm at Tripoli University today and I'm meeting a guy called Tommy who I met on Facebook.
He's going to show me round Tripoli and tell me what it was like during the war for everyone here.
I'm trying to find him but the students are still in protest mode.
Like many here, when the uprising started, Tommy quit his studies, picked up a gun and joined the revolutionary fighters.
Oh, wicked.
I've seen so much graffiti.
How does it feel to see this every day when you come to uni? It's cool.
Before, we hated it.
Now the walls all look cool.
I'm enjoying it.
That's amazing.
This is our shoes stepping on the rats.
You know who's the rat? Um, no! Who's the rat? 'the ruthless dictator who ruled Libya for 42 years.
' But what did you learn in school about Gaddafi? What was taught to you? History was all about Gaddafi.
Every time Gaddafi does something, like the announcement of I don't know.
He makes a lot of announcements! We had to memorise all the dates.
You grew up having to worship a man you hate.
Yes.
In the house we have to hate him.
In the school we have to worship him.
It was really, really confusing.
Tripoli is full of protesters.
They all want a share of the new Government.
If they'd tried to protest under Gaddafi, they'd have made the same trip I'm making and ended up here, Abu Salim, a top security jail where political prisoners were sent.
When you go to Abu Salim prison, you're going into the unknown.
There is no trials, no nothing.
Your family wouldn't know about you.
You just disappear.
If you end up in one of the cells, what happens to you? You will just be forgotten, you know? No-one will remember you.
Your family will go to every place and ask about you, like internal security, external security, and they will be like, "Your son is not with us.
We don't know what happened to him.
" Now they're ripping up the floor, trying to find the bodies of loved ones.
Hundreds are rumoured to be buried here after a notorious massacre.
The story says they just buried them under the cement.
Just put their bodies Like a mass grave? They didn't tell anybody about it.
They just killed the 1,200 people.
1,200! They just kept shooting people for three straight hours.
Gaddafi has the most criminal, twisted mind ever, I think.
Yes.
What's happened in Abu Salim is just a small part of the torture, abuse and misrule of Gaddafi's regime.
Inspired by the Arab Spring elsewhere, Libyans took to the streets to protest against the hated Government.
A vicious crackdown by Gaddafi led boys like Tommy to arm themselves and a civil war broke out.
Tommy went home to fight in the mountains.
We hijacked tanks from Gaddafi troops.
We took it out to the mountains and we were just 20 years old.
Oh, my God.
Nobody told us how to drive it.
We just figured it out by ourselves.
Like, "Thank you, Russians.
We don't need the manuals.
" When you have your CV and you're applying for a job, do you write down, "I have a license to drive a car.
"P.
S.
I can drive a tank should the occasion call for it"? So do you like living in a town? Do you like the mountains? If I had work and opportunity like I have in the city, I would totally move to the mountains.
Everybody knows each other.
You know your grandfather and that guy's grandfather and they know each other and you are sometimes like cousins.
That's the deal here and I like it.
Tommy's militia was largely made up of his family tribe, the Rijbani.
Libyans are split into different Arab tribes and loyalties run deep.
Which tribe you belonged to affected who you supported in the war.
Tommy and I have come to the spot where he was stationed for months.
He and his mates fought from these mountains all the way to Tripoli.
Tommy even filmed some of the fighting on his phone.
We used to watch the Gaddafi troops from here and they were stationed over there, the gas station we just passed.
Any car not identified trying to go up the mountain, we just shoot it.
'One night, they made a surprise raid on Gaddafi's troops.
' Only 106 of us from Rujban went down and I think what happened is they told us we were like 10,000.
They were scared and they retreated and we defeated them.
People sometimes use really sanitised words like "We defeated them," or "We got rid of them," but in reality what that means is you killed people.
That's what you guys had to do here.
Between you and yourself, you had to deal with that.
After the battle, you're, like, happy, you know? We had to do something because we were shelled every night for two months.
Do you feel bad for the people you killed? No.
I don't.
They had it coming.
They deserved that.
They deserved that.
'Like so many Libyans, 'Tommy lost close friends and relatives in the fighting.
'The war went on for more than eight months and the battles over the towns and cities along the coast 'cost thousands of lives.
' I can't understand how you can ever get over that.
So how does Libya move on? How can it build a new country from all the violence? To find out, I want to go to where the worst of the fighting happened.
And I'm starting in Benghazi, where it all began.
I've never been around when they're celebrating through live gunfire! They're just shooting into the air and everyone is cheering because they must have been proper fighters in the war.
God, that was so scary! I'm in the main square.
Now called Freedom Square, it honours the town's dead.
Tonight, there's a rally to celebrate the victorious fighters.
They're chanting, "We will never forget the people that have died.
" It's just an amazing atmosphere.
I know they're all ecstatically happy but I'm just not used to seeing guns on the streets.
For these kids, it's a normal thing over the past eight months.
They're excited, they're relaxed.
Why are you here? To celebrate the revolution? Are you not scared with the guns and everything? No.
So you're not scared when you hear the guns? No, no, no.
Not at all? It all started in Benghazi with peaceful demonstrations which Gaddafi tried to crush with force.
Within days, the rebellion spread to the rest of Libya.
But this revolution wasn't just won by men with guns.
Young women my age took up the fight too.
Atem's an 18-year-old student and, like me, she's a Facebook addict.
She and her friends used every form of social media to show the world what was happening here.
All I knew about Libya was this one wacky guy, Gaddafi, who was, like, a bit crazy.
I don't think anyone had an idea of what it was Yeah, it's not just you.
When you talk to someone online and say, "I'm from Libya," they're like, "Do you live in a tent? "Do they have cars there? Do you have camels everywhere?" No, I don't live in the fricking desert! I've never been more proud to say I'm from Benghazi.
'Freedom Square looks very different in the daylight.
'The place is covered with tribute pictures of dead fighters.
' So who gets these pictures up here? Mostly their friends and their families.
They just print put them out.
They come and hang them.
These are normal Libyans.
Are they coming to see who's on here, who's died? Yeah.
They're all young, just a few years older than me.
So it's really sad seeing this because they did it for us and for our country to be free, you know? Before being fighters, before taking up arms, what were they? Just normal kids, you know.
A guy from my class died in Sirte.
It was a very emotional day when we heard about it.
We all cried.
Just like me, he was 18 years old, just studying to be a doctor.
Just normal kids.
Last night, I saw a city rejoicing.
But today all I see is a city in mourning.
There are so many people that have died, so many kids, so many young boys.
It's a huge, huge penalty to pay.
They knew that.
They knew it wouldn't be easy.
They went there knowing they might not be coming back to their families but they still did it.
It's really hard not to get emotional.
I'm crying right now.
Aw.
They fought to win the freedom Gaddafi denied them.
And freedom now means they can say whatever they like about the man they hated.
It's really strange, but you get things like that where Gaddafi's face is actually Someone's put a cross on his face.
No like Gaddafi.
Is this your car? No, it's my car! It's a revolutionary car! This guy is making a point to throw all the rubbish on Gaddafi's face.
They need to make sure that they get it.
You can really tell that they hate the guy.
What will all this new freedom mean besides being able to insult Gaddafi? Hello.
Hi.
I'm Nel.
Nice to meet you.
'Atem is taking me for a night out with some of her friends at a cafe in town.
' I don't know what any of this is.
What does it say? Hot drinks.
What changes do you want to see? Education, better roads, everything.
No, what changes do YOU want to see? Personal to you, what changes do YOU want to see? Franchises.
I really want a mall here, seriously.
We all do! I want a mall before anything, seriously.
We can introduce you to Starbucks.
"I always wanted Starbucks and Gaddafi would never let it happen.
"Now we can have Starbucks!" When you think about it, when we want to go to a mall or have fun, we leave the country.
Yeah.
You go other places, you go even to Egypt.
So that's why saying we need a mall, it means that we should be able to have fun here.
In our own country.
Exactly.
We don't have to go away to have fun or do some shopping, or do some decent shopping anyway.
So all your H&M stuff isn't even from Libya? "Mum, I'm going to H&M.
Book the tickets to Lebanon.
" It's crazy! Wow.
Atem and her friends may have to wait for their shopping mall.
A lot of Libya is still in ruins.
Benghazi was lucky.
It was protected when Britain, France and others started a bombing campaign against Gaddafi's forces.
I'm heading further up the coast, to where the worst of the fighting happened - Misrata Holy shmokes.
Check it out.
Every single window in that place is gone.
This city was under siege.
For 70 days, Gaddafi's forces pounded it.
It's so hard to watch, so hard to see.
This isn't the same as Benghazi.
Hello! Oh, be careful! Are you OK? Where do you live? Which one? Show me.
'These kids tell me they were trapped in their house 'as Gaddafi's troops shelled their neighbourhood.
' Were you scared? There? Yeah.
'The boys tell me they were even held as human shields.
' What did you feel when all of this was happening? How did you feel when the older boys were going to fight? Did you want to join them? It breaks my heart that these kids already know what it means to be a martyr.
They're the same age as my little brother.
Tommy's connected me with Alla, his friend from Tripoli University.
When Gaddafi's secret police came knocking on her door, she fled here to be with her family.
Life is bad now here.
Life is bad? Yeah, life is bad, with all the destruction and everything.
That's massive.
Whatever blew that apart was massive-er.
They weren't here to, like, scare you.
They were here to kill you.
The war has left its mark everywhere.
From the shattered cities to the hopes and dreams of Libyan girls.
Lots of boys still wearing their uniforms and stuff.
You know, your mind changes.
Before we were looking for guys that had, like, a big house, or doctors.
But now there is a Facebook page called "Libyan girls who want to marry Libyan fighters.
" That's every girl's dream nowadays.
But lots of fighters returned from the battlefield injured.
Alla is a medical student.
She's brought me to the hospital where she worked during the war.
Most of the badly injured fighters have been sent abroad for treatment.
But 28-year-old civil servant Waleed is one of the few who can be taken care of here.
At any point, did it cross your mind, "Oh God, what have I done?" Is he ever going to be able to use his one leg and his arm again, properly? Can he ever type or use a phone? He can never do this? No, no.
Waleed is happy that he fought and sacrificed himself for his country, but not everyone is happy, are they? All patients are No, that can't be true.
I don't believe that, I don't believe that.
That's just what you want to tell me.
That's what you want me to think.
I appreciate this.
His entire body has been maimed, but he's like, "You know what? It's fine.
"I did what I had to do.
" It's just I know, it's hard for you, to imagine that, to believe it.
Most of them are thinking that there are going to be dead, so when they're losing a leg or arm for freedom, for the country, they are really proud.
We get rid of Gaddafi, we have our freedom.
We'll struggle to Do better .
.
have a better life now.
Everyone says what you expect them to say and it's only in like, whispered conversations, in minutes when they don't think I'm listening, or don't think I can hear, when you get the true sense that they're in shock.
But I don't see it like Alla does.
I can't see it like she does.
She's like, "Oh, it's OK.
"The whole country loves him.
He'll be fine.
Everyone will be fine.
" Misrata is next to Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown.
And it was there that he was captured and killed.
That's Gaddafi.
They're just punching him, kicking him.
Anyone who can get a bit of him is at it.
'I know by now how bloody revolutions are, 'but after looking at this footage I'm worried about the young men here 'when they've taken part in such violence.
' 'Now I want to meet some of these fighters.
' Hi! Hi! 'So Alla's taking me on a day trip to Sirte.
' How are you? 'It's still a dangerous journey, 'so her cousin Mohammed has arranged for a militia from Misrata 'to protect us from any rogue pro-Gaddafi forces.
' They're coming with us? Yes.
OK.
Sirte was the home of Gaddafi's tribe and the people there supported him.
So if you come from Misrata, you had plenty of reason to hate them.
This is the first time Alla is going to Sirte since the end of the war.
Just before entering the town, they have a surprise for us.
They've brought us to the spot where Gaddafi was captured.
This is a bunch of cars that Gaddafi was in when NATO hit it.
Oh, man! These were NATO strikes? Yes.
Yes, NATO.
And Gaddafi was in one of these cars, and he ran away.
'Gaddafi and a group of die-hard supporters were escaping from Sirte 'when their cars were hit by an air attack.
'He ran away.
They're taking me to the very spot he was found.
' Check it out! Oh, my God.
How do you feel? I don't know.
You're excited? Yes.
It's amazing.
I didn't believe this moment would come.
He was captured in this way.
And I'm standing here and Oh, my God! In the beginning of the revolution, he called us rats, so now he's the rat, he's the one who's captured from I'm speechless.
I've never seen Alla so happy.
She's just She's speechless.
She's taking photos and is just over the moon about it.
I finally feel like I'm at the centre of what this was all about.
Thousands of people that died, teenagers bearing arms, all of it was for that moment.
Gaddafi called his people rats, but ultimately he was the one who was found in a sewer.
See, this is what happens when you get a bunch of See now they're just getting all trigger-happy, and just deciding it's really funny to shoot guns everywhere, because they've got one and it's just around, so, "Why not? Hell, I'm going to shoot it off in the air.
" Oi! You're an old man.
Why are you doing that? It's not good.
He's just greeting you.
No.
Why don't you shake my hand? I will greet you by shaking your hand.
Yeah? Shake my hand.
Don't shoot your gun in the air.
There's no need for that craziness! OK.
Pointing it at me You see this is why Are we done? Are we done being men? Are we done? You guys feel good now? With no proper army in Libya, these men are one of the many militias taking law and order into their own hands.
I'm not sure I'd feel that safe with these guys in charge.
I want to see the town itself, the scene of terrible fighting and the final battle to overthrow Gaddafi.
Jeez Louise.
Oh my God! Holy mo.
Entire walls have been knocked down, not with massive artillery or bombs, but with sheer force of the number of bullets that have gone through them.
Sirte was a small fishing village, but became a symbol of Gaddafi himself.
He was born here and he pumped in loads of money to develop it.
If you lived here, you had lots of reasons to support Gaddafi.
Now, they're the people we don't hear about.
The people who lost the war.
During the worst of the bombing, the people here fled.
It's like a ghost town.
There's no-one here.
You can't believe someone actually lived here or this was a city where people did stuff.
There were schools, people went out, and there were cafes and stuff.
Some say that this town was destroyed AFTER Gaddafi was caught, in an act of vengeance.
Hello! Hi.
Give me your hand.
'We find a family who returned to salvage their shattered life.
' I ask Mum, Khadija, what she feels about the fighters who tore her town apart.
What did you think about that? She was completely pro-Gaddafi.
I feel sorry for her.
I don't blame her.
There were a lot of media channels for Gaddafi.
What she was saying is exactly what has been said on those channels.
It's like brainwashing.
No, hold on a minute, that's not true.
Listen, she might be brainwashed, but the fact that her son died at 19 isn't brainwashing.
The fact that she lives in a dead shanty town isn't brainwashing.
I appreciate that, yeah.
You know, she was quite clear.
She said, "When the fighters did come here, they were excessive.
"Everything they did was more than they needed to do.
" No, it's not about revenge.
I believe that when they came here they're not coming for revenge.
They came to fight the last of Gaddafi's people here.
She will always feel sorry about her son and we will always feel sorry about our brothers, cousins killed by Gaddafi.
So we have to open our hearts and just forget the past.
The divisions in Libya run deep, and it's not just the split between those who loved Gaddafi and those who hated him.
I'm on my way back to Tripoli, where there's a new government in place, made up of the different groups that won the war.
It's promised elections later this year but that's not going to be easy with heavily-armed militias from different tribes and regions still in place.
Back in Tripoli, I get caught up in another demo.
It's right outside my hotel.
It's a good example of how volatile things still are.
I'm here to meet up with Moez, a Libyan doctor from Manchester, who came over to patch up the wounded during the war and he stayed on to help rebuild his country.
How are you doing? What are they doing there? What are they saying? Not sure exactly but they went there and 15 of them died.
'It turns out 15 locals have just been shot dead 'in a carefully-planned ambush by Gaddafi loyalists.
' It just shows you how volatile it is here.
You can see the cracks forming.
You can see what's going to The way this thing might end up, which is, like, one region going to another region and fighting or this person thinks this person is pro-Gaddafi, or this town had a better life under Gaddafi and this town didn't.
It's fair enough the revolution and war is over but people still don't feel like they've got what they wanted.
Libya may now be a place where people are free to protest, but the country's totally packed with guns, so there's a danger demonstrations like this could turn nasty.
Obviously there's a lack of law and order at the moment.
You just saw the protest that was outside.
All these people have guns.
There is a huge amount of guns and weapons on the streets.
I've met plenty of young boys, particularly who are now heroes and they go back to their towns and cities or villages and they are seen as heroes.
I think it's going to be highly unlikely that they're willing to just give up their guns.
I think if we had an amnesty now, you're right, it's very unlikely.
No-one's going to hand in their weapons.
If I had a weapon, I probably wouldn't hand it in myself.
The people who have guns on the streets, the young people with weapons, the weapon is an insurance policy for their future.
A lot of them have an education but don't have jobs, They won't hand in their weapons unless they can secure their future, and they fought for their future with these guns.
This revolution was carried out by young people, young voices who actively risked their lives.
How will the voices of the fighters be reflected in the government? Before, it was very much the regime who were in the driving seats.
Now it's the people on the ground.
There has to be a bit of patience from their side.
They can't expect to see changes overnight, but if the officials aren't able to deliver, they will come out and they will say so because at the moment they are fearless.
Libya's future looks difficult to me.
Lots of young men with guns in a divided society.
I'm probably a bit more pessimistic than most of the people I've met, who seem full of hope.
Things may look rocky ahead, but the Libyans have overthrown a hated dictator and they've now a chance to build a new country.
Things seem a lot worse in the place I'm going to look at now.
My next stop is Lebanon.
I'm going there because it's next to Syria, where security forces have been attacking protesters for almost a year.
Syria is a very dangerous place and if you go there officially, you're restricted on what you can see.
So I'm staying in Lebanon but will try and get as close as possible to what's going on.
Thousands of Syrians have been sneaking into Lebanon as refugees, so I'm heading right up the border to try and find some.
It's quite risky.
Syrian soldiers have shot dead people trying to run away and the area is covered with landmines.
'And, suddenly, I see Syrian troops right there in front of me.
' Basically, that, right there, across that tiny little river, is Syria, and this is one of the places where the refugees cross.
I'm just a bit nervous now cos the Syrian army has seen me and the car and now they're shouting to each other.
I kind of want to get out of here now.
OK, yeah.
We're going to a local school which has been turned into a refugee camp.
It's estimated over 6,000 Syrians have escaped into Lebanon and ended up in places like this.
The conditions are incredibly tough.
Oh, my God, it's so cold in here.
Salam alaikum.
Salam alaikum.
'I'm meeting Amani, her husband and their two-month-old baby Farhad.
' 'She's cooking now but her fuel supplies are running out 'and there's no money to buy more.
' This is absolutely no way to be living.
That's probably every single thing they own in that corner right there.
It's like her kitchen is just half of her living room but with a few sheets separating them.
I mean, this can't be easier than living in a prison.
This is prison.
'Suddenly, it hits me.
' Sorry.
'Amani's story is just like my mum's.
' I'm from Afghanistan and when I was a baby, like your son, my mum took me from Afghanistan and she did what you did and brought me out of there.
So, I'm looking at you and I'm seeing history repeat itself in a different way.
'But it turns out that Amani's story is worse.
'Much worse than anything my mum had gone through.
' The family had to walk for four days and nights over the mountains to make it to safety.
Her husband was on the run from the Syrian army.
Oh, my God.
How did you lose your son? They tortured your son? Who tortured your son? That woman is 25 years old.
She's a year older than me.
She's had one baby murdered and another one that's sleeping in her arms in a refugee camp.
And this is happening in this world, you know.
This isn't the moon, this is nowhere.
This is four hours away on a flight from London! I can't confirm what Amani has told me, but her story is similar to many others coming out of Syria.
Back in my hotel in Beirut, I want to know more.
For 40 years, Syria has been ruled by a repressive regime headed by the Assad family.
The Assads belong to the Alawite sect of Islam, unlike most Syrians, who are Sunni Muslims.
Last year, many took to the streets protesting for more freedom.
They were met with shocking violence from the government.
The regime says it's fighting terrorists and criminal armed bands.
Some estimate the death toll is now approaching 10,000.
Nobody really knows the number but most of the casualties are Sunnis.
The battle lines have been drawn between the different religious communities.
And, just like Libya, the country is heading for an all-out civil war.
Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, has a reputation as a city of spies and political intrigue.
And the biggest game in town at the moment is Syrian government agents trying to track down anti-Assad activists.
It's a matter of life and death.
I want to meet some Syrians who have escaped into Lebanon.
For their own safety, they needed to check I am who I say I am, and that I'm not being followed, so they're sending a contact to suss me out.
I'm going to meet a bunch of people, Syrians, who are having a virtual war, basically.
They're fighting, but on a virtual level.
They're using the internet, Twitter and Facebook and things like that, to find a way to show the world what's happening in Syria, because no-one really knows, and I can't get in.
These people are a way for me to see for myself what's happening there.
'My contact is Bisan.
' Hi.
Hi.
I'm Bisan.
Nice to meet you.
'Ten months ago, she was studying in London 'but when the Syrian uprising started, she came over to Lebanon 'to do her bit with the cyber revolutionaries.
' This is a relatively safe area where we work in.
It's not dominated by the Syrian embassy or the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party.
OK.
So we're not likely to get beaten up.
That's always a good thing.
I look for this in areas.
But, at the same time, everyone is watched so there's an element of risk no matter where you are in Beirut.
What do you mean everyone is watched? What's this, a spy movie? It's really weird.
Phones are tapped.
Areas generally belong to a certain party or a certain militia, so they watch us, they know what we're doing.
Everyone's actions are watched.
But they've chosen to leave us alone for now.
I'm not the one that's at risk, really, because I'm Lebanese.
Shaqib, the person that I'm taking you to meet, he's at risk because he's wanted inside Syria for crimes punishable by death.
Oh, God.
And the Lebanese ministries have a tendency to arrest Syrians and deport them where they can get killed.
'The other cyber activists are busy looking at footage from Syria 'before passing it on to the worldwide media.
' Hi, I'm Nel.
Shaqib, this is Nel.
Hi, Shaqib, nice to meet you.
Yara.
Hi, Yara, nice to meet you.
'For the past year, the world has relied on people like this 'to find out what's actually happening on the ground.
' What is being done to us is much worse than being denied our basic human rights.
We're being killed, we're being slaughtered, we're being raped.
And we think it's important for this to be documented.
Even if it's not going to invoke sympathy in the world, we want to make sure that Assad's crimes are on the record.
This is a video from earlier this morning, from the shelling of Homs.
OK.
That building is totally like It's just a bit of it is falling off.
They cracked the building in half? No, no, they just took down a couple of floors.
'Shaqib is getting raw footage direct from the front lines.
'The next video shows a man who's been hit by a rocket grenade.
' It's really bad.
Oh, for f Is he alive?! Yeah, he's still alive.
'It's much worse than anything I've seen on the news back home.
'But some Syrians have had enough.
'This tank was destroyed by rebels 'who are now fighting fire with fire.
' I think Assad has shown that he's willing to fight to the last drop of Syrian blood.
So, I think, erm, the pattern we've seen now, which is the militarisation of the revolution, I think it's going to continue.
And we're helpless to stop it.
You can't tell somebody, "No, shut up and die.
" But do you agree with it? I can't make this decision for other people who are at significantly more risk than I am - I am here.
I'm not being shelled.
My house still in one piece.
I have not been arrested, I have not been raped, I have not been tortured.
So, I-I live a different reality than they do.
Syria's armed rebels call themselves the Free Syrian Army and I want to meet some of them.
So I'm heading out of Beirut and back up north towards the Syrian border.
I'm about an hour away from Beirut and closer to the Syrian border and the people here are much more affected by what's happening in Syria.
You can tell that this place is just a little bit more dangerous, because of the number of guards, policemen and army people out in the streets.
I've arranged to meet a Sunni Muslim cleric called Sheikh Bilal, who's running a network in support of Syria's uprising.
Hi.
Nice to meet you.
How are you? 'He's helping the rebels because they're mainly Sunni Muslims, just like him.
' So what do you do in terms of the fighting, how are you involved? The Free Syrian Army is fighting Assad's army.
Assad has tanks, grenades, everything! Massive arsenal.
You have like, guns, rifles, how can you win? Wow, OK.
Holy gosh.
Wow, does he have more? "Lots more"! Well That's a grenade launcher, I know what that is.
I've seen that in Four Lions.
That's definitely not a little rifle, that's serious hardcore stuff.
That's the biggest heaviest weaponry I've seen so far on this whole thing.
So Sheikh Bilal's network is buying arms inside Lebanon and shipping them off to the rebels.
Is it possible you could take me to meet some of the defected soldiers who are fighting against Assad's army? Do you know any, can you take me? The Sheikh says he can arrange everything, and is sending two of his people ahead to set up a secret rendezvous with the rebels.
To meet them, I've got to travel to Lebanon's mountainous northern border zone.
It's not going to be easy.
All traffic in and out is being checked at this army roadblock.
It's taken the better part of about four hours to get across like, less than a mile of road, going back and forth.
Someone needs to stamp something, someone needs to see something, someone needs to take all of our equipment, it's just been mental getting here.
But we finally made it.
There's got to be something happening here for sure.
The Sheikh's contacts are waiting for me.
Hello.
Hi.
Salam alaikum.
Nice to meet you.
How are you? Good.
My name is Nel 'I'm finally going to meet Syrian soldiers who have defected to the rebels' side.
' I've just been rushed into this room by about 15 men.
Because it has to be that hush-hush.
I'm literally sitting next to some of Assad's ex-army people who've now joined the other side, and they are the Free Syrian Army and they are now fighting Assad.
Even though they were once part of what he did, part of his campaign.
What kind of things did you see in Damascus in those first few days? What did you see the army do? What did they do to you because you wouldn't fight for Assad, what happened to you? 'The other defector asks to hide his identity to protect his family, 'who are still in Syria.
' What about yourself, what role do you play in the Free Syria Army? Those men were going back to fight the regime and might end up paying with their lives.
Although the Free Syria rebels are now occupying parts of the country, Assad shows no signs of giving up.
And Syria's immediate future looks painful and bloody.
I'm coming to the end of my journey now.
I can see the twists and turns along this Arab revolutionary road.
It may be the way towards a brighter future, but it's littered with broken lives.
Amani - the refugee mother, who's firstborn son was murdered by Assad's militia.
Tommy, the 21-year-old, fun-loving student turned freedom fighter, gunman and killer.
It's a sad thing that you have to kill someone, but you have to look to the bright side and you do what you have to do.
Either you kill or be killed.
Alla, the medic, ecstatic at the killing of the dictator Gaddafi.
In the beginning of the revolution, he called us rats, so now he is the rat, he is the one who's captured.
It's like a dam has burst in the Middle East.
Emotions - pent-up for decades - are running free.
It's exciting and it's dangerous.
I'm meeting Bisan again.
Ten months ago, she came over from London to help the activists.
Despite all the suffering and the violence, she's still hopeful about the future.
From the experience I've had and the countries I've been to, it doesn't seem that this is going to die down any time soon.
You guys are in it for the long run.
People will not stop fighting.
They've tasted freedom.
You've got liberated cities, people speaking their minds.
So, I mean, I get despondent, but there's so much to be optimistic about.
That's one of them - the fear is broken.
Fear that controlled a couple of generations.
Their children are able to speak now.
And they will be able to speak in the future.
We take our freedom for granted in Britain and get concerned with everyday things wanting a new phone or a new pair of shoes.
But the children of the Arab Spring, they want to be able to say what they think without being tortured.
To be able to walk down a street without being shot at.
Young people saw what they were missing and said, "We deserve better.
" And I think they do.
But their journey will be a long and hard one.
I'm from London but I watched the news as revolutions spread across the Arab world with young people right at the heart of them.
I've been amazed by how people came together to overthrow governments and change their world.
Now I'm going on a journey to meet them.
I've never been around when they've celebrated with live gunfire! Do you feel bad for the people you killed? No.
They had it coming.
They tortured your son? This is four hours away on a flight from London.
I find the revolutions are still going on They'll get shot! The police are shooting protesters.
It's all flowing this way.
It feels like burning.
And I'll get caught up in the heart of events The Syrian army's seen me.
We are being killed, being slaughtered.
As I find myself alongside people still fighting for freedom.
Just to be standing here in the middle of a revolution this is what it is! I've seen riots on the streets of Egypt and Bahrain.
Now I'm going to look at Libya and Syria to see what happens when people pick up guns and start shooting back.
Oh, my God.
This is Tripoli, the capital of Libya.
So far it's the only country in the Arab Spring to overthrow their Government with a civil war.
I'm here to find out how they can rebuild their lives and their country.
I'm at Tripoli University today and I'm meeting a guy called Tommy who I met on Facebook.
He's going to show me round Tripoli and tell me what it was like during the war for everyone here.
I'm trying to find him but the students are still in protest mode.
Like many here, when the uprising started, Tommy quit his studies, picked up a gun and joined the revolutionary fighters.
Oh, wicked.
I've seen so much graffiti.
How does it feel to see this every day when you come to uni? It's cool.
Before, we hated it.
Now the walls all look cool.
I'm enjoying it.
That's amazing.
This is our shoes stepping on the rats.
You know who's the rat? Um, no! Who's the rat? 'the ruthless dictator who ruled Libya for 42 years.
' But what did you learn in school about Gaddafi? What was taught to you? History was all about Gaddafi.
Every time Gaddafi does something, like the announcement of I don't know.
He makes a lot of announcements! We had to memorise all the dates.
You grew up having to worship a man you hate.
Yes.
In the house we have to hate him.
In the school we have to worship him.
It was really, really confusing.
Tripoli is full of protesters.
They all want a share of the new Government.
If they'd tried to protest under Gaddafi, they'd have made the same trip I'm making and ended up here, Abu Salim, a top security jail where political prisoners were sent.
When you go to Abu Salim prison, you're going into the unknown.
There is no trials, no nothing.
Your family wouldn't know about you.
You just disappear.
If you end up in one of the cells, what happens to you? You will just be forgotten, you know? No-one will remember you.
Your family will go to every place and ask about you, like internal security, external security, and they will be like, "Your son is not with us.
We don't know what happened to him.
" Now they're ripping up the floor, trying to find the bodies of loved ones.
Hundreds are rumoured to be buried here after a notorious massacre.
The story says they just buried them under the cement.
Just put their bodies Like a mass grave? They didn't tell anybody about it.
They just killed the 1,200 people.
1,200! They just kept shooting people for three straight hours.
Gaddafi has the most criminal, twisted mind ever, I think.
Yes.
What's happened in Abu Salim is just a small part of the torture, abuse and misrule of Gaddafi's regime.
Inspired by the Arab Spring elsewhere, Libyans took to the streets to protest against the hated Government.
A vicious crackdown by Gaddafi led boys like Tommy to arm themselves and a civil war broke out.
Tommy went home to fight in the mountains.
We hijacked tanks from Gaddafi troops.
We took it out to the mountains and we were just 20 years old.
Oh, my God.
Nobody told us how to drive it.
We just figured it out by ourselves.
Like, "Thank you, Russians.
We don't need the manuals.
" When you have your CV and you're applying for a job, do you write down, "I have a license to drive a car.
"P.
S.
I can drive a tank should the occasion call for it"? So do you like living in a town? Do you like the mountains? If I had work and opportunity like I have in the city, I would totally move to the mountains.
Everybody knows each other.
You know your grandfather and that guy's grandfather and they know each other and you are sometimes like cousins.
That's the deal here and I like it.
Tommy's militia was largely made up of his family tribe, the Rijbani.
Libyans are split into different Arab tribes and loyalties run deep.
Which tribe you belonged to affected who you supported in the war.
Tommy and I have come to the spot where he was stationed for months.
He and his mates fought from these mountains all the way to Tripoli.
Tommy even filmed some of the fighting on his phone.
We used to watch the Gaddafi troops from here and they were stationed over there, the gas station we just passed.
Any car not identified trying to go up the mountain, we just shoot it.
'One night, they made a surprise raid on Gaddafi's troops.
' Only 106 of us from Rujban went down and I think what happened is they told us we were like 10,000.
They were scared and they retreated and we defeated them.
People sometimes use really sanitised words like "We defeated them," or "We got rid of them," but in reality what that means is you killed people.
That's what you guys had to do here.
Between you and yourself, you had to deal with that.
After the battle, you're, like, happy, you know? We had to do something because we were shelled every night for two months.
Do you feel bad for the people you killed? No.
I don't.
They had it coming.
They deserved that.
They deserved that.
'Like so many Libyans, 'Tommy lost close friends and relatives in the fighting.
'The war went on for more than eight months and the battles over the towns and cities along the coast 'cost thousands of lives.
' I can't understand how you can ever get over that.
So how does Libya move on? How can it build a new country from all the violence? To find out, I want to go to where the worst of the fighting happened.
And I'm starting in Benghazi, where it all began.
I've never been around when they're celebrating through live gunfire! They're just shooting into the air and everyone is cheering because they must have been proper fighters in the war.
God, that was so scary! I'm in the main square.
Now called Freedom Square, it honours the town's dead.
Tonight, there's a rally to celebrate the victorious fighters.
They're chanting, "We will never forget the people that have died.
" It's just an amazing atmosphere.
I know they're all ecstatically happy but I'm just not used to seeing guns on the streets.
For these kids, it's a normal thing over the past eight months.
They're excited, they're relaxed.
Why are you here? To celebrate the revolution? Are you not scared with the guns and everything? No.
So you're not scared when you hear the guns? No, no, no.
Not at all? It all started in Benghazi with peaceful demonstrations which Gaddafi tried to crush with force.
Within days, the rebellion spread to the rest of Libya.
But this revolution wasn't just won by men with guns.
Young women my age took up the fight too.
Atem's an 18-year-old student and, like me, she's a Facebook addict.
She and her friends used every form of social media to show the world what was happening here.
All I knew about Libya was this one wacky guy, Gaddafi, who was, like, a bit crazy.
I don't think anyone had an idea of what it was Yeah, it's not just you.
When you talk to someone online and say, "I'm from Libya," they're like, "Do you live in a tent? "Do they have cars there? Do you have camels everywhere?" No, I don't live in the fricking desert! I've never been more proud to say I'm from Benghazi.
'Freedom Square looks very different in the daylight.
'The place is covered with tribute pictures of dead fighters.
' So who gets these pictures up here? Mostly their friends and their families.
They just print put them out.
They come and hang them.
These are normal Libyans.
Are they coming to see who's on here, who's died? Yeah.
They're all young, just a few years older than me.
So it's really sad seeing this because they did it for us and for our country to be free, you know? Before being fighters, before taking up arms, what were they? Just normal kids, you know.
A guy from my class died in Sirte.
It was a very emotional day when we heard about it.
We all cried.
Just like me, he was 18 years old, just studying to be a doctor.
Just normal kids.
Last night, I saw a city rejoicing.
But today all I see is a city in mourning.
There are so many people that have died, so many kids, so many young boys.
It's a huge, huge penalty to pay.
They knew that.
They knew it wouldn't be easy.
They went there knowing they might not be coming back to their families but they still did it.
It's really hard not to get emotional.
I'm crying right now.
Aw.
They fought to win the freedom Gaddafi denied them.
And freedom now means they can say whatever they like about the man they hated.
It's really strange, but you get things like that where Gaddafi's face is actually Someone's put a cross on his face.
No like Gaddafi.
Is this your car? No, it's my car! It's a revolutionary car! This guy is making a point to throw all the rubbish on Gaddafi's face.
They need to make sure that they get it.
You can really tell that they hate the guy.
What will all this new freedom mean besides being able to insult Gaddafi? Hello.
Hi.
I'm Nel.
Nice to meet you.
'Atem is taking me for a night out with some of her friends at a cafe in town.
' I don't know what any of this is.
What does it say? Hot drinks.
What changes do you want to see? Education, better roads, everything.
No, what changes do YOU want to see? Personal to you, what changes do YOU want to see? Franchises.
I really want a mall here, seriously.
We all do! I want a mall before anything, seriously.
We can introduce you to Starbucks.
"I always wanted Starbucks and Gaddafi would never let it happen.
"Now we can have Starbucks!" When you think about it, when we want to go to a mall or have fun, we leave the country.
Yeah.
You go other places, you go even to Egypt.
So that's why saying we need a mall, it means that we should be able to have fun here.
In our own country.
Exactly.
We don't have to go away to have fun or do some shopping, or do some decent shopping anyway.
So all your H&M stuff isn't even from Libya? "Mum, I'm going to H&M.
Book the tickets to Lebanon.
" It's crazy! Wow.
Atem and her friends may have to wait for their shopping mall.
A lot of Libya is still in ruins.
Benghazi was lucky.
It was protected when Britain, France and others started a bombing campaign against Gaddafi's forces.
I'm heading further up the coast, to where the worst of the fighting happened - Misrata Holy shmokes.
Check it out.
Every single window in that place is gone.
This city was under siege.
For 70 days, Gaddafi's forces pounded it.
It's so hard to watch, so hard to see.
This isn't the same as Benghazi.
Hello! Oh, be careful! Are you OK? Where do you live? Which one? Show me.
'These kids tell me they were trapped in their house 'as Gaddafi's troops shelled their neighbourhood.
' Were you scared? There? Yeah.
'The boys tell me they were even held as human shields.
' What did you feel when all of this was happening? How did you feel when the older boys were going to fight? Did you want to join them? It breaks my heart that these kids already know what it means to be a martyr.
They're the same age as my little brother.
Tommy's connected me with Alla, his friend from Tripoli University.
When Gaddafi's secret police came knocking on her door, she fled here to be with her family.
Life is bad now here.
Life is bad? Yeah, life is bad, with all the destruction and everything.
That's massive.
Whatever blew that apart was massive-er.
They weren't here to, like, scare you.
They were here to kill you.
The war has left its mark everywhere.
From the shattered cities to the hopes and dreams of Libyan girls.
Lots of boys still wearing their uniforms and stuff.
You know, your mind changes.
Before we were looking for guys that had, like, a big house, or doctors.
But now there is a Facebook page called "Libyan girls who want to marry Libyan fighters.
" That's every girl's dream nowadays.
But lots of fighters returned from the battlefield injured.
Alla is a medical student.
She's brought me to the hospital where she worked during the war.
Most of the badly injured fighters have been sent abroad for treatment.
But 28-year-old civil servant Waleed is one of the few who can be taken care of here.
At any point, did it cross your mind, "Oh God, what have I done?" Is he ever going to be able to use his one leg and his arm again, properly? Can he ever type or use a phone? He can never do this? No, no.
Waleed is happy that he fought and sacrificed himself for his country, but not everyone is happy, are they? All patients are No, that can't be true.
I don't believe that, I don't believe that.
That's just what you want to tell me.
That's what you want me to think.
I appreciate this.
His entire body has been maimed, but he's like, "You know what? It's fine.
"I did what I had to do.
" It's just I know, it's hard for you, to imagine that, to believe it.
Most of them are thinking that there are going to be dead, so when they're losing a leg or arm for freedom, for the country, they are really proud.
We get rid of Gaddafi, we have our freedom.
We'll struggle to Do better .
.
have a better life now.
Everyone says what you expect them to say and it's only in like, whispered conversations, in minutes when they don't think I'm listening, or don't think I can hear, when you get the true sense that they're in shock.
But I don't see it like Alla does.
I can't see it like she does.
She's like, "Oh, it's OK.
"The whole country loves him.
He'll be fine.
Everyone will be fine.
" Misrata is next to Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown.
And it was there that he was captured and killed.
That's Gaddafi.
They're just punching him, kicking him.
Anyone who can get a bit of him is at it.
'I know by now how bloody revolutions are, 'but after looking at this footage I'm worried about the young men here 'when they've taken part in such violence.
' 'Now I want to meet some of these fighters.
' Hi! Hi! 'So Alla's taking me on a day trip to Sirte.
' How are you? 'It's still a dangerous journey, 'so her cousin Mohammed has arranged for a militia from Misrata 'to protect us from any rogue pro-Gaddafi forces.
' They're coming with us? Yes.
OK.
Sirte was the home of Gaddafi's tribe and the people there supported him.
So if you come from Misrata, you had plenty of reason to hate them.
This is the first time Alla is going to Sirte since the end of the war.
Just before entering the town, they have a surprise for us.
They've brought us to the spot where Gaddafi was captured.
This is a bunch of cars that Gaddafi was in when NATO hit it.
Oh, man! These were NATO strikes? Yes.
Yes, NATO.
And Gaddafi was in one of these cars, and he ran away.
'Gaddafi and a group of die-hard supporters were escaping from Sirte 'when their cars were hit by an air attack.
'He ran away.
They're taking me to the very spot he was found.
' Check it out! Oh, my God.
How do you feel? I don't know.
You're excited? Yes.
It's amazing.
I didn't believe this moment would come.
He was captured in this way.
And I'm standing here and Oh, my God! In the beginning of the revolution, he called us rats, so now he's the rat, he's the one who's captured from I'm speechless.
I've never seen Alla so happy.
She's just She's speechless.
She's taking photos and is just over the moon about it.
I finally feel like I'm at the centre of what this was all about.
Thousands of people that died, teenagers bearing arms, all of it was for that moment.
Gaddafi called his people rats, but ultimately he was the one who was found in a sewer.
See, this is what happens when you get a bunch of See now they're just getting all trigger-happy, and just deciding it's really funny to shoot guns everywhere, because they've got one and it's just around, so, "Why not? Hell, I'm going to shoot it off in the air.
" Oi! You're an old man.
Why are you doing that? It's not good.
He's just greeting you.
No.
Why don't you shake my hand? I will greet you by shaking your hand.
Yeah? Shake my hand.
Don't shoot your gun in the air.
There's no need for that craziness! OK.
Pointing it at me You see this is why Are we done? Are we done being men? Are we done? You guys feel good now? With no proper army in Libya, these men are one of the many militias taking law and order into their own hands.
I'm not sure I'd feel that safe with these guys in charge.
I want to see the town itself, the scene of terrible fighting and the final battle to overthrow Gaddafi.
Jeez Louise.
Oh my God! Holy mo.
Entire walls have been knocked down, not with massive artillery or bombs, but with sheer force of the number of bullets that have gone through them.
Sirte was a small fishing village, but became a symbol of Gaddafi himself.
He was born here and he pumped in loads of money to develop it.
If you lived here, you had lots of reasons to support Gaddafi.
Now, they're the people we don't hear about.
The people who lost the war.
During the worst of the bombing, the people here fled.
It's like a ghost town.
There's no-one here.
You can't believe someone actually lived here or this was a city where people did stuff.
There were schools, people went out, and there were cafes and stuff.
Some say that this town was destroyed AFTER Gaddafi was caught, in an act of vengeance.
Hello! Hi.
Give me your hand.
'We find a family who returned to salvage their shattered life.
' I ask Mum, Khadija, what she feels about the fighters who tore her town apart.
What did you think about that? She was completely pro-Gaddafi.
I feel sorry for her.
I don't blame her.
There were a lot of media channels for Gaddafi.
What she was saying is exactly what has been said on those channels.
It's like brainwashing.
No, hold on a minute, that's not true.
Listen, she might be brainwashed, but the fact that her son died at 19 isn't brainwashing.
The fact that she lives in a dead shanty town isn't brainwashing.
I appreciate that, yeah.
You know, she was quite clear.
She said, "When the fighters did come here, they were excessive.
"Everything they did was more than they needed to do.
" No, it's not about revenge.
I believe that when they came here they're not coming for revenge.
They came to fight the last of Gaddafi's people here.
She will always feel sorry about her son and we will always feel sorry about our brothers, cousins killed by Gaddafi.
So we have to open our hearts and just forget the past.
The divisions in Libya run deep, and it's not just the split between those who loved Gaddafi and those who hated him.
I'm on my way back to Tripoli, where there's a new government in place, made up of the different groups that won the war.
It's promised elections later this year but that's not going to be easy with heavily-armed militias from different tribes and regions still in place.
Back in Tripoli, I get caught up in another demo.
It's right outside my hotel.
It's a good example of how volatile things still are.
I'm here to meet up with Moez, a Libyan doctor from Manchester, who came over to patch up the wounded during the war and he stayed on to help rebuild his country.
How are you doing? What are they doing there? What are they saying? Not sure exactly but they went there and 15 of them died.
'It turns out 15 locals have just been shot dead 'in a carefully-planned ambush by Gaddafi loyalists.
' It just shows you how volatile it is here.
You can see the cracks forming.
You can see what's going to The way this thing might end up, which is, like, one region going to another region and fighting or this person thinks this person is pro-Gaddafi, or this town had a better life under Gaddafi and this town didn't.
It's fair enough the revolution and war is over but people still don't feel like they've got what they wanted.
Libya may now be a place where people are free to protest, but the country's totally packed with guns, so there's a danger demonstrations like this could turn nasty.
Obviously there's a lack of law and order at the moment.
You just saw the protest that was outside.
All these people have guns.
There is a huge amount of guns and weapons on the streets.
I've met plenty of young boys, particularly who are now heroes and they go back to their towns and cities or villages and they are seen as heroes.
I think it's going to be highly unlikely that they're willing to just give up their guns.
I think if we had an amnesty now, you're right, it's very unlikely.
No-one's going to hand in their weapons.
If I had a weapon, I probably wouldn't hand it in myself.
The people who have guns on the streets, the young people with weapons, the weapon is an insurance policy for their future.
A lot of them have an education but don't have jobs, They won't hand in their weapons unless they can secure their future, and they fought for their future with these guns.
This revolution was carried out by young people, young voices who actively risked their lives.
How will the voices of the fighters be reflected in the government? Before, it was very much the regime who were in the driving seats.
Now it's the people on the ground.
There has to be a bit of patience from their side.
They can't expect to see changes overnight, but if the officials aren't able to deliver, they will come out and they will say so because at the moment they are fearless.
Libya's future looks difficult to me.
Lots of young men with guns in a divided society.
I'm probably a bit more pessimistic than most of the people I've met, who seem full of hope.
Things may look rocky ahead, but the Libyans have overthrown a hated dictator and they've now a chance to build a new country.
Things seem a lot worse in the place I'm going to look at now.
My next stop is Lebanon.
I'm going there because it's next to Syria, where security forces have been attacking protesters for almost a year.
Syria is a very dangerous place and if you go there officially, you're restricted on what you can see.
So I'm staying in Lebanon but will try and get as close as possible to what's going on.
Thousands of Syrians have been sneaking into Lebanon as refugees, so I'm heading right up the border to try and find some.
It's quite risky.
Syrian soldiers have shot dead people trying to run away and the area is covered with landmines.
'And, suddenly, I see Syrian troops right there in front of me.
' Basically, that, right there, across that tiny little river, is Syria, and this is one of the places where the refugees cross.
I'm just a bit nervous now cos the Syrian army has seen me and the car and now they're shouting to each other.
I kind of want to get out of here now.
OK, yeah.
We're going to a local school which has been turned into a refugee camp.
It's estimated over 6,000 Syrians have escaped into Lebanon and ended up in places like this.
The conditions are incredibly tough.
Oh, my God, it's so cold in here.
Salam alaikum.
Salam alaikum.
'I'm meeting Amani, her husband and their two-month-old baby Farhad.
' 'She's cooking now but her fuel supplies are running out 'and there's no money to buy more.
' This is absolutely no way to be living.
That's probably every single thing they own in that corner right there.
It's like her kitchen is just half of her living room but with a few sheets separating them.
I mean, this can't be easier than living in a prison.
This is prison.
'Suddenly, it hits me.
' Sorry.
'Amani's story is just like my mum's.
' I'm from Afghanistan and when I was a baby, like your son, my mum took me from Afghanistan and she did what you did and brought me out of there.
So, I'm looking at you and I'm seeing history repeat itself in a different way.
'But it turns out that Amani's story is worse.
'Much worse than anything my mum had gone through.
' The family had to walk for four days and nights over the mountains to make it to safety.
Her husband was on the run from the Syrian army.
Oh, my God.
How did you lose your son? They tortured your son? Who tortured your son? That woman is 25 years old.
She's a year older than me.
She's had one baby murdered and another one that's sleeping in her arms in a refugee camp.
And this is happening in this world, you know.
This isn't the moon, this is nowhere.
This is four hours away on a flight from London! I can't confirm what Amani has told me, but her story is similar to many others coming out of Syria.
Back in my hotel in Beirut, I want to know more.
For 40 years, Syria has been ruled by a repressive regime headed by the Assad family.
The Assads belong to the Alawite sect of Islam, unlike most Syrians, who are Sunni Muslims.
Last year, many took to the streets protesting for more freedom.
They were met with shocking violence from the government.
The regime says it's fighting terrorists and criminal armed bands.
Some estimate the death toll is now approaching 10,000.
Nobody really knows the number but most of the casualties are Sunnis.
The battle lines have been drawn between the different religious communities.
And, just like Libya, the country is heading for an all-out civil war.
Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, has a reputation as a city of spies and political intrigue.
And the biggest game in town at the moment is Syrian government agents trying to track down anti-Assad activists.
It's a matter of life and death.
I want to meet some Syrians who have escaped into Lebanon.
For their own safety, they needed to check I am who I say I am, and that I'm not being followed, so they're sending a contact to suss me out.
I'm going to meet a bunch of people, Syrians, who are having a virtual war, basically.
They're fighting, but on a virtual level.
They're using the internet, Twitter and Facebook and things like that, to find a way to show the world what's happening in Syria, because no-one really knows, and I can't get in.
These people are a way for me to see for myself what's happening there.
'My contact is Bisan.
' Hi.
Hi.
I'm Bisan.
Nice to meet you.
'Ten months ago, she was studying in London 'but when the Syrian uprising started, she came over to Lebanon 'to do her bit with the cyber revolutionaries.
' This is a relatively safe area where we work in.
It's not dominated by the Syrian embassy or the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party.
OK.
So we're not likely to get beaten up.
That's always a good thing.
I look for this in areas.
But, at the same time, everyone is watched so there's an element of risk no matter where you are in Beirut.
What do you mean everyone is watched? What's this, a spy movie? It's really weird.
Phones are tapped.
Areas generally belong to a certain party or a certain militia, so they watch us, they know what we're doing.
Everyone's actions are watched.
But they've chosen to leave us alone for now.
I'm not the one that's at risk, really, because I'm Lebanese.
Shaqib, the person that I'm taking you to meet, he's at risk because he's wanted inside Syria for crimes punishable by death.
Oh, God.
And the Lebanese ministries have a tendency to arrest Syrians and deport them where they can get killed.
'The other cyber activists are busy looking at footage from Syria 'before passing it on to the worldwide media.
' Hi, I'm Nel.
Shaqib, this is Nel.
Hi, Shaqib, nice to meet you.
Yara.
Hi, Yara, nice to meet you.
'For the past year, the world has relied on people like this 'to find out what's actually happening on the ground.
' What is being done to us is much worse than being denied our basic human rights.
We're being killed, we're being slaughtered, we're being raped.
And we think it's important for this to be documented.
Even if it's not going to invoke sympathy in the world, we want to make sure that Assad's crimes are on the record.
This is a video from earlier this morning, from the shelling of Homs.
OK.
That building is totally like It's just a bit of it is falling off.
They cracked the building in half? No, no, they just took down a couple of floors.
'Shaqib is getting raw footage direct from the front lines.
'The next video shows a man who's been hit by a rocket grenade.
' It's really bad.
Oh, for f Is he alive?! Yeah, he's still alive.
'It's much worse than anything I've seen on the news back home.
'But some Syrians have had enough.
'This tank was destroyed by rebels 'who are now fighting fire with fire.
' I think Assad has shown that he's willing to fight to the last drop of Syrian blood.
So, I think, erm, the pattern we've seen now, which is the militarisation of the revolution, I think it's going to continue.
And we're helpless to stop it.
You can't tell somebody, "No, shut up and die.
" But do you agree with it? I can't make this decision for other people who are at significantly more risk than I am - I am here.
I'm not being shelled.
My house still in one piece.
I have not been arrested, I have not been raped, I have not been tortured.
So, I-I live a different reality than they do.
Syria's armed rebels call themselves the Free Syrian Army and I want to meet some of them.
So I'm heading out of Beirut and back up north towards the Syrian border.
I'm about an hour away from Beirut and closer to the Syrian border and the people here are much more affected by what's happening in Syria.
You can tell that this place is just a little bit more dangerous, because of the number of guards, policemen and army people out in the streets.
I've arranged to meet a Sunni Muslim cleric called Sheikh Bilal, who's running a network in support of Syria's uprising.
Hi.
Nice to meet you.
How are you? 'He's helping the rebels because they're mainly Sunni Muslims, just like him.
' So what do you do in terms of the fighting, how are you involved? The Free Syrian Army is fighting Assad's army.
Assad has tanks, grenades, everything! Massive arsenal.
You have like, guns, rifles, how can you win? Wow, OK.
Holy gosh.
Wow, does he have more? "Lots more"! Well That's a grenade launcher, I know what that is.
I've seen that in Four Lions.
That's definitely not a little rifle, that's serious hardcore stuff.
That's the biggest heaviest weaponry I've seen so far on this whole thing.
So Sheikh Bilal's network is buying arms inside Lebanon and shipping them off to the rebels.
Is it possible you could take me to meet some of the defected soldiers who are fighting against Assad's army? Do you know any, can you take me? The Sheikh says he can arrange everything, and is sending two of his people ahead to set up a secret rendezvous with the rebels.
To meet them, I've got to travel to Lebanon's mountainous northern border zone.
It's not going to be easy.
All traffic in and out is being checked at this army roadblock.
It's taken the better part of about four hours to get across like, less than a mile of road, going back and forth.
Someone needs to stamp something, someone needs to see something, someone needs to take all of our equipment, it's just been mental getting here.
But we finally made it.
There's got to be something happening here for sure.
The Sheikh's contacts are waiting for me.
Hello.
Hi.
Salam alaikum.
Nice to meet you.
How are you? Good.
My name is Nel 'I'm finally going to meet Syrian soldiers who have defected to the rebels' side.
' I've just been rushed into this room by about 15 men.
Because it has to be that hush-hush.
I'm literally sitting next to some of Assad's ex-army people who've now joined the other side, and they are the Free Syrian Army and they are now fighting Assad.
Even though they were once part of what he did, part of his campaign.
What kind of things did you see in Damascus in those first few days? What did you see the army do? What did they do to you because you wouldn't fight for Assad, what happened to you? 'The other defector asks to hide his identity to protect his family, 'who are still in Syria.
' What about yourself, what role do you play in the Free Syria Army? Those men were going back to fight the regime and might end up paying with their lives.
Although the Free Syria rebels are now occupying parts of the country, Assad shows no signs of giving up.
And Syria's immediate future looks painful and bloody.
I'm coming to the end of my journey now.
I can see the twists and turns along this Arab revolutionary road.
It may be the way towards a brighter future, but it's littered with broken lives.
Amani - the refugee mother, who's firstborn son was murdered by Assad's militia.
Tommy, the 21-year-old, fun-loving student turned freedom fighter, gunman and killer.
It's a sad thing that you have to kill someone, but you have to look to the bright side and you do what you have to do.
Either you kill or be killed.
Alla, the medic, ecstatic at the killing of the dictator Gaddafi.
In the beginning of the revolution, he called us rats, so now he is the rat, he is the one who's captured.
It's like a dam has burst in the Middle East.
Emotions - pent-up for decades - are running free.
It's exciting and it's dangerous.
I'm meeting Bisan again.
Ten months ago, she came over from London to help the activists.
Despite all the suffering and the violence, she's still hopeful about the future.
From the experience I've had and the countries I've been to, it doesn't seem that this is going to die down any time soon.
You guys are in it for the long run.
People will not stop fighting.
They've tasted freedom.
You've got liberated cities, people speaking their minds.
So, I mean, I get despondent, but there's so much to be optimistic about.
That's one of them - the fear is broken.
Fear that controlled a couple of generations.
Their children are able to speak now.
And they will be able to speak in the future.
We take our freedom for granted in Britain and get concerned with everyday things wanting a new phone or a new pair of shoes.
But the children of the Arab Spring, they want to be able to say what they think without being tortured.
To be able to walk down a street without being shot at.
Young people saw what they were missing and said, "We deserve better.
" And I think they do.
But their journey will be a long and hard one.