Free Syrian Army: We'll kill Assad

CNN's Ivan Watson and crew are some of the few international reporters in Syria, whose government has been restricting access on foreign journalists and refusing many of them entry. Check out more from CNN inside Syria.
Rebel-controlled northern Syria (CNN) -- Mohamed Rashid walked out of the gate of his house with a giant blood stain on his white T-shirt.

"This is the blood of a martyr! Of a hero! Of a lion!" he bellowed. "This is his blood. It is pure!"

Mad with grief, Rashid kissed his bloody T-shirt before being led away by worried relatives.

Just hours before, Rashid learned his son Abdul was killed in battle in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Housam Abdul Rashid was a 22-year-old defector from the army. He was also the fourth man from his small hilltop village to be killed fighting for the rebels.

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The younger Rashid is one of the casualties of the five-day-old rebel offensive on Aleppo, the country's commercial capital. Another rebel, who asked only to be named "Khorshid" because his wife and children were still living in Aleppo, described how his comrade was killed by a helicopter gunship, while climbing onto a rooftop.

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"Housam's specialty was a sniper," Khorshid said. "He went to the roof, and a helicopter gunship killed him. Another fighter from Aleppo with him was also killed. I was just 4 meters away when it happened."

Khorshid said the rebels mounted their offensive on Aleppo last Friday, two days after a bomb killed four of Syria's top security officials.

Rebel commanders and fighters claimed they made gains, particularly in the neighborhood of Salahuddin. But they were also clearly suffering casualties.

What began 17 months ago as a peaceful protest movement has evolved into a full-fledged armed insurgency.

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Countless rebel battalions with names like "Shield of Idlib Battalion" and "Freedom Brigade" have emerged, as well as military rebel councils in large towns and cities.

The rebel militias are composed in large part of defector soldiers. But there are also many civilians, including students, shopkeepers, real-estate agents, and even members of President Bashar al-Assad's ruling Ba'ath party.

Ahmed Habib spent a decade working as a bureaucrat with the Aleppo branch of the Ba'ath party. But eight months after joining the rebels, he was now dressed in improvised military fatigues, carrying a Belgian-made Fabrique Nationale assault rifle slung over his shoulder.

"We wished to have a new democracy when Bashar al-Assad became president," he said, when asked about his years of Ba'ath party service.

"We wished to have freedom for the people, but that never happened. We just got new cars and computers. It's ... nothing," he cursed in English.