"@koertdebeuf: Must see. @CNN undercover inside Damascus. Fear comes out of your screen.http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/30/world/meast/undercover-syria/index.html #cnn"
CNN International 
12:04 PM - 1 Sep 12 · Details
Inside Syria: Bombs, road blocks and ice cream
August 31, 2012 -- Updated 1847 GMT (0247 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- In Damascus, people watch as tracer fire lit up the sky
- Locals were annoyed we were not seeing the best of their city
- We tried to avoid contact with security officers but needed their help with road directions
- Young fighters laughed with me; now after sustained attacks I don't know how many are still alive
Editor's note: CNN has obtained an extraordinary account of life in Syria over the last two weeks. For safety reasons, we are not naming the journalist.
Syria (CNN) -- We'd been in Damascus for several weeks, watching out of our windows as smoke hovered almost daily over the city's skyline.
Where we were staying holed up was somewhat safe but it didn't insulate us from the noise of the battles threatening to engulf the Syrian capital.
One day we stood outside a local ice cream seller's shop as tracer fire lit up the night sky. The ice cream seller then tried to give us our cones for free.
As foreigners, we stood out in a crowd of locals, all of whom were weirdly protective of Damascus and put out that we weren't seeing their city at its best.
