they've been on the ground for 48 hours and their initial statements are so far stunning. the chief monitor of the arab league observer force is a sudanese military commander mohammed mustafa al dabbi, he's the former head of intelligence in the government of omar basher. a man wanted for crimes against humanity. he told "reuters" that quote things were calm and there were no clashes in homs. he went on to say, the situation seems reassuring so far. he also said, some places looked a bit of a mess, but there was nothing frightening. nothing frightening. that's not of course what we've been hearing from people in and around homs for months. and it's not what you will hear from a reporter who snuck into the city and just returned. the footage he took is very disturbing and we'll show you that tonight as well. there's other footage i want to show you, but it's hard to watch. this is video claiming to show the aftermath of an artillery strike in homs. the scene, destruction, several people lay dead. as always, we can't independently confirm the facts, because the syrian regime won't let us see for ourselves. but this is what others tell us is happening. in homs, the day the monitors landed in syria, the gunfire was reportedly nonstop. this is a neighborhood called baba amir, the monitors visiting the neighborhood today, and you heard what general al dhabi, the chief monitor said, not frightening. the security forces and militia of syrian army they are using armored vehicles and tanks and anti-arctic, armored, storming this area, storming this neighborhood. there are more than ten houses completely destroyed and there were many bodies under the rubble there. there is now a genocide taking place in this city of homs. >> you can argue about the use of the word, "genocide" but the killings have taken on a sectarian nature. this activist is desperate that something do something to help. >> we are calling for direct intervene from the whole organization and the international community, to intervene in syria and stop this bloodshed that's going on in syria and homs in particular. >> just yesterday again with the arab league monitors on the ground, there was reported violence across syria. this video reportedly shows security forces firing on protesters. the monitors are in syria to verify that president assad is not attacking his people. today in dara, military defectors reportedly launched an attack on supporters. four security force members were killed and 14 other people died across syria today. what did the arab league observers observe in homs today? besides the benign statements by their leader, we've seen this video, it shows what is apparently an arab league observer being shown the body of a dead child. the man is in the orange vest, presumably the arab league observer, according to the logo on his vest. the little boy is said to be about five years old, he and his family were allegedly shot by security personnel who opened fire on their van. now remember, the sudanese head of this observer team says he saw nothing frightening, things seem calm today. many people are outraged that this sudaness man, al dhabi is leading the mission to begin with. he's a military commander in sudan and was head of foreign intelligence in a government which is now accused of genocide in darfur. he reported to a leader who is now wanted by the international criminal court for crimes against humanity. this is the man who is head of the observer force. the syrian opposition force, doctors local committees in damascus, is calling for that man's removal, saying his role of deputy head of foreign intelligence, raises protests. al dabi is now tasked with probing war crimes, the appointment of al dabi taints the arab league's efforts and is nothing more than a political farce. the situation al dabi calls reassuring and calm. other says it's just the beginning of the mission and it's important that we let themselves get squared away on the ground, get their mission up and running. but syrian opposition groups report that 14 people were killed today across the country, including five people in homs. a freelance journalist and filmmaker who we're not naming has just left homs. he spent six days there, and over the next few days, cnn is going to be showcasing his remarkable stories from the front lines of a city at war. his first report is about the government snipers that prowl homs, picking off civilian victims at will and randomly. >> the snipers are on basically every main street. they have checkpoints on both sides. snipers would shoot everybody who is basically crossing this street between 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 in the morning. this is an unofficial curfew. the activists told me i have to meet this woman, this is the mother of a victim who got shot when she was pregnant in the seventh month. it was during the morning when she wants to go out for shopping. >> translator: her brother tried for half an hour to go over the walls and roofs to get to her, but he didn't manage to reach her. finally they managed to pull her away. but it took another half an hour to get her to my house. >> you arrive at the situation, you arrive at a scene where a half hour ago, somebody got shot. and 30 minutes later, people are crossing, very normally, the street. me, crossing the street, i've been feeling basically, literally i've been feeling that somebody is aiming, the sniper is aiming on me and it's up to him if he gonna pull the trigger or not. i came to this junction and i realize that somebody wanted to cross the street with a hume bag of cigarettes. so he -- i could hear the snipers shooting. and he was, he was not able to cross the street and the bag with cigarettes was in the middle of the street. so again one of this very impressive scenes where people have been very happily and almost like a sport challenge, to get the cigarette bags out from the sniper range. and they've been happy when they could. and they started to throw it from one side to the other. so everything they needed from one side to the other this throw it over the streets. >> short time ago, i spoke to that journalist by phone again, we're not naming him for his own security. >> the footage that we just showed of snipers basically shooting people who are trying to get supplies, cigarettes and food. is really stunning. is there any justification for what they're doing? i mean how can they justify randomly shooting people, tarting people in the streets? >> yes, it's exactly what you said, it's randomly. what we've seen in homs was especially in the neighborhoods which are exactly in the middle of the city. surrounded by a lot of different sniper positions, which are aiming to all the main alleys. they are trying to randomly put fear into the people and the neighborhood, in order to get them quiet and not getting out of the streets to demonstrate. >> and yet the people continue to turn out to demonstrate, and you make the point that they have no other choice. that if, if attention if the world attention stops focusing on homs, if the demonstrations stop, the government will just go in later on, once it's gotten quiet, and arrest them, anyway. >> exactly. so there is no other option for them. there might be either keep on fighting and demonstrating, uprising, or getting killed by the regime, anyway. >> you spent time in syria before, you took great risks, you risked your life to get into homs. what surprised you the most. >> everybody who was forcing every time they're doing a peaceful uprise, now start to say the point of no return is already crossed. this is not be able to end peacefully. we are getting armed. we have the free syrian army. we will have to fight. >> the arab league has sent a monitoring team into syria to try to assess the situation. what do people say about that? the head of the team is a sudanese general, his own track record is in question. >> the activists have been telling me about the monitoring team is that they are basically think that this is a total show by the arab league. if the arab league would want to really do some pressure and steps against the regime, they would not need this, this monitoring teams. especially not a team which is guided by somebody who is not, not really the most convincing people for the activists. >> thank you for what you've done, thank you for your footage. >> thank you. joining us is a senior fellow at stanford university's hoover institution. when you see people being shot on the streets trying to toss bread across from one to another, there's no justification for the government in syria is doing. >> i think you have to understand the mind of bashar al assad, just as his father maintained his reign by conquering and defeating the city of hamma 20 years ago, i think bashar al assad is determined to defeat the city of homs. he wants to make sure there can be no benghazi. >> no free zone. >> exactly. became the free zone and liberated libya, homs cannot liberate syria. and the demography is complicated. >> there's a specific geography of the fear that you see. the aloui neighborhoods are spared, the sunni neighborhoods are shelled. the bread, electricity is all cut off from the sunni neighborhood. you see the terrible logic of this regime. >> which is basically pushing it towards sectarian conflict. >> that's from the playbook of bashar al assad, that's what he would love to do in fact. because if he makes the sectarian, he corners his own aloui community, they stick to him, they have to become basharists. >> he cannot win, but they cannot win, either. there's right now this back and forth. >> absolutely. i think we've talked before about syria repeatedly. i think what it is in many ways, an irresistible force meeting with an immovable object. the people can't go back. they've crossed that point. they can't accept the syria of the assad dynasty. they will go and pick them one at a time, the syrian intelligence. so it's too late for the opposition, they must win and it's too late for the regime, because that's what the regime is lookinged a. bashar al assad is looking at, he sees possibly what happened to gadhafi as a pray plud, a precautionary tale of what could happen to him. -- a prelude. >> it's beyond the point of return for the people who have protested thus far. there's no going back for them. because if the world, not that the world is really paying attention, but to the extent that it is, if that attention stops, if the protests stop, then security forces come in the night and just take you away and kill you. >> i think you've got it. and i think what's interesting about it, there was kind of a placard carried by some women in homs that said, all doors are closed except your doors or god. there's only god left for them. because again, they look at libya and see that libya was rescued by nato and they look at their own situation, ten months into this terrible fight, no one has come to the rescue and the arab league is a joke. the arab league had always been a joke. the arab league did one decent thing on libya, and all it did was to single out gadhafi, to finger him, if you will for the international community. and so now the arab league sends this compromised mission, but we see what we see. >> there's 60 observers, for a country, ridiculously small number, led by a man who is linked to the regime in sudan. that's, if you wrote it as a play, it would be laughable. but it's real. >> exactly. 60 observers, for a country of 23 million people led by someone who must be reckoned to be the godfather of the dreaded janga we'd. you can't send an iraqi, the syrians with not send anybody from the gulf and the egyptians don't want to do it so guess what, they stick with the sudanese, it's a terrible mission and i think the international community that's hiding behind the arab league, if you will, has to face at some point what's to be done about syria. >> is there any answer? >> when the basically the arab league says to the syrians, look, if you don't behave, if you don't grant us access, we're going to internationalize the conflict, we're going to refer it to the security council. and bashar al assad says welcome, on the security council he has russia and china. the last time the security council discussed syria, he not only had russia and china, he had india and brazil and south africa to the eternal shame on his side. >> thanks for being on, appreciate it let us know what you think we're on facebook, add us to your circumstanles. coming up, new polling showing mitt romney holding the lead, but support for gingrich drops. and amazing pictures out of north korea. mourners filling the streets of pyongyang. whether real or not, the cries, you see them there, just incredible look at the most important moments coming up. they have carb steady, with carbs that digest slowly to help minimize blood sugar spikes. [ male announcer ] new glucerna hunger smart. a smart way to help manage hunger and diabetes. in politics, six case before the iowa caucuses, a report shows that support is dropping for gingrich and growing for santorum. a new poll shows that mitt romney and ron paul are the front-runners, aamong the likely gop caucus participants in iowa. romney has a slight lead over paul. the next two spots are the big story, santorum is in third with 16%, and gingrich is at 14%, down 19 points from the beginning of the month. in a moment i'll talk with aur political panel about whether all the negative ads against gingrich from rival campaigns are behind the plunge. but first here's what's front-runner mitt romney had to say. >> if you're going to get in a campaign like this, you have to have broad shoulders and if you can't take on a negative that's part of a prime, you're sure not going to be ready of what's going to come from barack obama. if you can't handle the heat in this kitchen, wait for barack obama's hell's kitchen. >> and joining me are two political contributors. one of the interesting numbers out of the new cnn/"time" survey, it wasn't a horse race, it was a response to the question, we asked the voters, who is the best chance of beating obama in iowa. romney was far and away the top pick. and in new hampshire, he had more support on this question than all the others in the race combined. >> yeah. listen, in so many ways, can he beat president obama is the question. that to me is the most significant part of the poll. because you can love somebody because they say exactly what you think, what you believe. you can love someone because you like their personal story. but in the end, what republicans want is someone who can throw president obama out of the white house. so electability is huge, it's what mitt romney has been pushing, saying look you got to have someone who can stand up to president obama, who can actually beat him. and in the end, when they go in to the poll, whether it's a straw poll or a caucus or primary in new hampshire, what republicans want is someone who can beat obama. and so i think we're definitely talking about a winner kind of number for mitt romney. >> hilary, do you think republican voters are rallying around romney? maybe they're not in love with him, but it's maybe a marriage of convenience? >> this campaign has been so fascinating, because clearly democrats, we've always thought that we're going to end up with the president running against mitt romney. and but yet, it was in the earl will i months of the fall where mitt romney's vulnerabilities were really obvious. you know, he the fact that he is a flip-flopper. that he has no job creation record. that he has consistent -- >> come on, hilary. >> republicans saw those weaknesses and started looking elsewhere. and the rest of the field isn't that attractive, either. you saw the gingrich surge, he was a lot angrier about the president, so he had his surge for a moment. but i think when push comes to shove, from their perspective, romney has run a pretty good campaign to date and all of the other candidates have their own flaws and iowa may be more reflective of the republican primary problems than it is their solutions. >> rich, i'll let you respond to that hilary said. >> i talked to two campaigns in iowa today. and candy's is out there, so she's probably heard the same things, but they say that the santorum surge is a real surge. and that ron paul's campaign is going to, is probably tomorrow going to turn its big guns not only advertising, but people in stops where he is, the social media that the paul people are so good at. they're going to turn that entire operation against rick santorum and try to protect at least their second-place finish in iowa, if not pivot back and try to top romney. they're convinced that these other two campaigns, that santorum is peaking at exactly the right time. not that he can win, but that he can really kind of surprise everybody. >> and rich, why do you think it is that he has done so well in the last couple of weeks? >> i think to this extent, i agree with hilary, that this is, he's the last one standing whose tires haven't been kicked by the conservative wing of the republican party. they went through everybody else. >> the other issue, reason why santorum is that the evangelical vote, 60% historically of the republican primary, pushed mike huckabee to a win in 2008. they're coalescing around rick santorum and there aren't that many states where the evangelical wing of the republicans are that dominant. but if santorum does well in iowa, he can also move, he's not going to do that well in new hampshire, but south carolina is another early state where the evangelical vote is pretty strong. and so you know, there ends up being -- >> i think south carolina. >> anybody but mitt and who coalesces around mitt as the strongest candidate. >> i think south carolina will be the two-man death match between santorum and gingrich, loser goes home. but when you get past that, hilary and candy, you still have to go to florida. a week later, a $2 million-a-week state. who else has the money and resources and infrastructure to do all that within 28 days starting next tuesday? >> candy, are expectations now, i mean for romney that if he places anywhere but first, that that would be seen as a defeat? i don't think he could place any place but second and have it not be negative for him. but i think he could place a strong second to someone like ron paul, simply because most republicans, even though it makes the ron paul people very upset. most republicans don't see ron paul as someone who will win the nomination. but he is someone who can stay the course. he will stay in this forever. until the end, until it's over. placing second to ron paul for mitt romney in iowa would be okay, they could use that as traction moving into new hampshire. what mitt romney can't do is lose to rick perry or newt gingrich, that's a problem. >> candy crowley, thank you, hilary rose and mitch. our coverage begins at 7:00 p.m. next tuesday, january rd. ahead in north korea, a fascinating day carefully-staged farewell to kim jong il, thousands of wailing mourners lining the streets of the capital. we'll look at the very public outpouring of grief. we'll show you the most remarkable images from this day. and a reporter sues the massachusetts town where prince committed suicide for details accounts from her parents. 6 ♪ [ slap! ] [ slap! slap! slap! slap! ] ow, ow! 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