totalaryn regime and all orders come from president assad. translator: in 2003 after the american invasion of iraq and the toppling of the regime the syrian regime felt threatened so they coordinate would al qaeda and had an agreement to keep the road open to iraq so militants started coming all over the world through syrian. al qaeda was an ally of assad after 2003 and built safe havens for al qaeda to hide in. i remember one of those safe havens. the americans raided it in 2008 and captured prisoners. this was a hiding place for al qaeda on the border with iraq. it was under the control of a brother-in-law of the president. who is making the decisions in damascus right now? who is directing the syrian government policy facing this uprising translator: the regime in syria is a totaltar yn regime and a dictatorship. there is only one person who gives the orders, one person who is the president. the rest of the regime personnel are people who only obey. does the syrian
the rest of the unit joins in, shooting wildly. they come under fire. [ gun fire ] an ambulance is hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. they and we are caught in the open. a pot shot. something in the distance. fightered opened up and there was some return fire. cnn producer was hit. i ve been shot. down, down. down. go, go, go! get down! right side. go to the right side of everything. go, go! that s it. good. other way. we start to check his injury. looks like there is a piece of shrapnel inside. you can feel it? i could feel it. when he was moving around, i could feel it inside. reporter: at a nearby field hospital, medics help ian. while dealing with their own grief. a colleague of these men was killed in the same attack just meters away from where the rpg, we think, hit the ambulance that was near us. what was his name? and how old was he? about 27, 28. reporter: tell me about him. about 9:00 he wake up me in my bed and we he came to tus and he s like