damascus. the rebels gained some strategic high ground so they can fire down into some of assad's strongholds into damascus. it may be now or never for president assad to husband his heavy tanks and artillery and air power to hit rebel positions to push them back or if the rebels will march all the way there intoward his power base. right now, recent reports over weekend added hundreds if not a thousand people to the death toll that is now over 45,000. the other thing we're seeing on a larger scale there inside of syria is the influence of foreign fighters and islamist who have come in. these are hardcore islamists who are much more interested turning syria into something like an islamic state or taking control of their chemical weapons stockpiles, their heavy weapons stockpiles than they are bringing democratic syria into fruition the next several months. that is the real concern for the international community.