Syrian Uprising: Images, Sounds Provide Glimpse of Deadly Violence Inside Country

April 26, 2011 — -- Although Americans have been told to leave and Western reporters have been banned, there is a way inside Syria via pictures, transmitted across borders, that people are making sure the world will see.

They are images you cannot turn away from. Sounds that are impossible to forget.

A young girl is rushed through a Syrian street by men desperate to find her medical care. She has been shot in the eye, an image too gruesome to show on TV. Her father cries in the background: "D--- you! D--- you! ... She's a little girl."

This struck me as well: A father records his family huddled with him at home -- the sound of a baby and toddlers nearby as -- "bang! bang!" -- a terrifying scene plays out below them.

Ear-splitting gunfire is everywhere. It is punishment to the thousands of protesters who have dared to confront the government.

The quiet can be equally terrifying. You wonder what will happen next as Syrian troops gather around.

And then there are the tanks. They are intimidating.

I have long had a spent tank shell in my office. It is a reminder of a war a long time ago. With its size, it can take down walls and buildings and wreak unimaginable destruction on human beings.

Syrians watch, angry and horrified. They Tweet information. "Tanks are gathering."

ABC News' Faisal Sidiq, an Arabic speaker, has helped me communicate on Facebook with a young eyewitness who tells us she is seeing bodies in the streets and security forces firing on people at funerals. But she describes it as a mix of pain and hope.

It is clear neither tanks nor bullets nor the sacrifice of some so young stops these crowds. They may not have the power of weapons, but they have the power of images. Images that they hope will somehow, someday, put a stop to this.