Violence committed by thugs loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad has prompted thousands of Syrians to flee to Lebanon and Turkey. Sources in the country describe growing opposition to a system based on nepotism and secret police. Meanwhile, pockets of rebellion are continuing unchecked.

In the Syrian city of Ariha, the cherry trees are covered with deep red fruit. It is harvest time and the cherries are sweet, but no one comes to pick them.

Two weeks ago, after the regime's elite troops had transformed peaceful demonstrations in the nearby provincial capital Idlib into bloodbaths, two young men tried to save the cherry harvest. They loaded their small truck full of cherries and took off for the port city of Latakia in western Syria.

They didn't make it very far. A military patrol stopped the two men in front of a sugar refinery and shot them dead.

In Turmoil

Syria is in turmoil, but there is no widespread revolution like there is in Libya. Instead, the country has disintegrated into a surreal patchwork of places where it is tense but quiet, and combat zones in which the regime's most loyal units are killing people indiscriminately. There are cities that fear has transformed into ghost towns, and more than 10,000 Syrians have already fled to Turkey and Lebanon.