“The French may want to go home, but that might not be an easy thing,” Lynch says, adding that on the drive into Bamako Wednesday she saw two large convoys of heavy French fighting vehicles heading up the road on the way to Gao.

“They seem to be getting ready for another battle,” Lynch says.

France is anxious to begin drawing down its 4,000 soldiers from Mali. The French foreign minister said Wednesday those troops should begin pulling out in March.

Islamists extremists have been pushed out of Gao, but there are still dangers on the road.

Lynch says the French military found a few explosive devices on the way to the city.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. In Northern Mali, the job’s not over for French and Malian troops. They successfully pushed Islamist militants and other rebels from key cities in the North, such as Timbuktu and Gao, but they’re still working to reclaim other areas where extremists are still in control. Today, French troops moved into the city of Kidal, the last Jihadist bastion in the North. CBC’s correspondent Laura Lynch is in Central Mali. Earlier, she travelled to Gao with a French military convoy.

Laura Lynch: We came out with the convoy this morning and it was actually not as big as it was yesterday and it certainly seemed to go a lot faster than it did yesterday. Now that may have been because of the fact that, on the way up, we went very, very slowly. There were concerns about roadside bombs and in fact those concerns were validated later in the day when French forces found what turned out to be three devices on the road ahead of us. They had been looking up and scouting out for it. So we had to stop for the night. We had left earlier in the day from just about here, where I am tonight, and made our way up very, very slowly and we didn’t get to Gao because of those devices. So we ended up being on a makeshift Malian Army military base and we essentially had to get out of our cars and sleep under the stars because we had no other option. The soldiers of course had their own on the road accomodations, but we weren’t quite ready for that. So it was just something that we had to do, but we sure got our alarm the next morning and it came with a loud bang and that was when the French forces safely detonated those three devices. Only after that did we get out on the road again and we made our way again, very slowly, up to Gao with no further incidents but I will tell one thing that we saw. We saw quite a big crater in the middle of the road and that crater was left by another roadside bomb that had exploded just days ago and it killed four Malian soldiers.

Werman: Yeah. So the security situation is still dicey in some parts. There is a sense of success though with Islamists pushed out of cities like Gao and that of Timbuktu, but now there are these dire warnings about what might happen. What might transpire in Mali if the French troops up and leave. So what’s the mood among the French troops right now? What kind of sense did you get this morning?

Lynch: I think that the troops are feeling pretty darn proud of themselves. They think they’ve come in there and done a really good job very quickly and managed to get rid of the Jihadists by and large in all of the places they wanted to. There still is active fighting going on through in the city of Kidal and French jets are bombing bases where they think Jihadists are hiding out for now. So for them the battle isn’t yet over and they know that there is still work to do, but there is also a desire for them not to stay too long. To be able to see other West African nations bring forces in. To be able to see the Malian Army improve so that it can actually fight because, let’s face it, a year ago when the Jihadists moved in a lot of the Malian Army just melted away and beat a retreat and didn’t stand up to them and that’s why people, a lot of people, are so concerned about the French leaving. They don’t trust the Malian Army to protect them.

Werman: Now you’ve covered other wars other, Laura. How does this conflict in Mali compare?

Lynch: Well when you look at how quickly the main part of the main phase of this battle has ended, it’s actually quite remarkable. I mean it was almost over before the reporters got there to cover it. So in that sense, it’s been very, very different. The other that for me, as a reporter, has been interesting and at times very frustrating is the difficulty in actually being able to go and cover what’s been going on. That road that I went up today has been inaccessible to almost every Western journalist for days now. We were able to get in only because we fell in with a French military convoy. So we were able to get through those checkpoints. Now we’re told by the forces that the reason they’re not letting people through is because they’re concerned about people’s welfare. Well roadside bombs maybe make that credible, but there are other concerns among journalists that perhaps the Malian Army is more interested in preventing us from seeing what human rights organizations had accused them of, which is abuses in their own right. Abuses of those who they believe are Jihadist sympathizers. So difficult in that sense to be able to cover it. I didn’t get anywhere near the front lines to see what was going on and nor did any other journalists. They got there after the fact when the so-called liberators moved into town and the crowds filled the streets cheering them on.

Werman: Laura Lynch who is in Malti in Central Mali covering the conflict there for The World and the CBC. Thanks so much, Laura.

Lynch: You’re welcome, Marco.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Reporter Laura Lynch was with them.

She’s covering the story for The World and the CBC.

France sent 3,500 troops to Mali in a rapid campaign to oust Islamists linked to al-Qaeda.

Human rights groups say what appears to be a successful campaign has come at great cost to the country.

Laura Lynch reports from Bamako.

Amnesty Int’l releases #Mali report: army accused of extrajudicial killings of civilians based on “ethnic” appearance.

— lauralynchworld (@lauralynchworld) February 1, 2013

There are nothing but smiles on the faces of the dozen children spilling out of a small apartment in Bamako.

The cramped quarters – with five adults there are 17 in all– are better than what they left behind when they escaped the city of Gao last spring. Mohammed Ibrahim Yattara – father to six of the children –says it was a frightening time.

“Mostly when you see people coming shooting gunfire in front of your house or threatening you with a gun in front of your children in front of your wife I think that’s a very scary thing,” Yattara says.

First, Yattara says Tuareg rebels came, then Islamist militants. Being Christians, he and his family felt like targets –especially when their church was destroyed. He says that was just the beginning.

“Drastically life has changed because when they looted the city there was no bank, no market,” he says. “I mean nothing.”

Today, though he’s smiling at the news that the last stronghold of the militants, Kidal, appears to have fallen. Yattara thinks the war is all but won and his country is saved.

We think we’ll have years, centuries of security and peace,” he says.

Others, though, including the fighters themselves, insist this is just a pause. Analysts suggest this may evolve into a guerrilla war with smaller scale, irregular attacks, similar to Afghanistan.

In a nearby house where Mohammed Ag Sabou lives with his and three other families, there’s not much talk of a lasting peace. He is from Timbuktu and fled when Islamist fighters evicted him from his house.

Realistically, he says, the military will have to stay there for along time to strengthen security and prevent revenge attacks. There are still lots of Islamists, in the cities, in the mountains, in the desert.

And then there are those who cannot contemplate ever trying to find a peace pact with those who invaded their cities and their lives.

At this busy bus station, Suleiman Traore stands out, wearing a heavy grey jacket with long sleeves in the intense heat of Bamako’s midday sun.

He wears it for one sad reason.

“It’s to stop me from seeing that my hand isn’t there anymore,” he says.

Traore was caught by militants last fall in Gao, accused of stealing their weapons.

For that, they cut off his right hand.

He rolls up his sleeve to show the stump, and pronounces what he thinks should happen to the fighters who are now retreating under fire.

“The best way to deal with them isn’t to kill them,” he says. “I think they should be mutilated too so they’ll know the pain and the difficulties of living this way.”

Perhaps the biggest clue to how these refugees really feel about the swift military victories in the north lies in their plans for the future.

They don’t want to return home just yet.

They are waiting and watching, not certain what will come next.

Among those helping to restore power on Long Island are dozens of Canadian utility workers.

Anchor Aaron Schachter speaks with the CBC’s Laura Lynch, who has been spending time with the Canadian crews.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Aaron Schachter: For many residents of Long Island, New York, the biggest concern right now remains being without power. Tens of thousands of customers have been without electricity since Sandy hit the region almost two weeks ago now. Some got their power back only to lose it again after this week’s Noreaster. Utility crews from all around the nation are there to help, and there are some Canadian crews too. The CBC’s Laura Lynch has been on Long Island to check on those crews from north of the border. Laura, how unusual or usual is it for Canadian crews to come into the US to help like this?

Laura Lynch: Well, it’s not unprecedented in and of itself. In fact there are mutual assistance agreements that extend across the border, so if a company or a province or a town gets into trouble, they just put out the call for someone to come across. And in fact, I don’t know if you recall this, in 1998 there was a massive ice storm that mainly hit Montreal, and crews came up from New York to help out then, and apparently some crews even came up from Florida, although I’m not sure how familiar they were in working in conditions of snow and ice. But this time around it is unusual in the sheer numbers of people who they’ve had to call in to come down, and that’s, the obvious reason why, is because there are so many people left without power.

Schachter: Are the Canadian crews from a particular place, are they volunteers, how does that work?

Lynch: Well, the call goes out, come and help us, and then people in the communities, mostly in eastern Canada, look at what their own resources need. So in this case, they came from Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, but they scan the whole entire area. The guys get in their trucks and they start driving. And this time they had to make sure they came down with full tanks of gas, because they know there’s a problem here with gas too, as you just heard.

Schachter: And what’s been the response of New York residents to the Canadian crews?

Lynch: These residents were on the street that hadn’t had power for ten days, and then the Canadian trucks came rolling down the street from a town called Burlington, Ontario. There was one gentleman there shoveling snow off the sidewalk, his name is Kim Cragnolin, and it didn’t take him long to see the maple leaf and realize that these workers were Canadian, and he was pretty happy about it.

Craig Cragnolin: It’s been a siege for these people, you know. To think that we got to get you Canucks down here to bail us out. I think it’s like a miracle of social organization, and we’re very thankful.

Lynch: And not surprising that they’re thankful, given the situation that they’ve been living through. On this street a giant tree had been uprooted by Hurricane Sandy. It came crashing down on a house and brought all the power lines down with it, so the workers were facing a pretty big task.

Schachter: The Canadians are coming down from a place that’s cold, gets a lot of snow, wind and rain, that sort of thing, so they must be pretty used to this sort of thing.

Lynch: Well, that is true to an extent, but the other Americans who they were working with, because they combine with American supervisors, sort of picked out the Canadians as the stars of the show. There was a gentleman from Virginia named Dexter Trump who was working with this Canadian crew, and he told me that the Canadians stood out, especially after the nor’easter came on top of the hurricane.

Dexter Trump: They had us working with other folks and we couldn’t get anything done. They gave us these Canadian boys, worked from morning till last night. They want to keep going, get everybody’s lights on, so they kept going.

Lynch: You have to understand, when he was talking about going the night before, that night I was out in it, it was nasty. The winds were blowing so strong, the sleet was coming down, it was bone-chilling cold. I met Brad Cumming who was in charge of this particular group, and he talked about the fact that it was important for them to keep going on the night of the nor’easter, in the cold and in the dark, because of one mother who came up to them and told them she would really like it if they could get the power back on because she had a sick child, a very sick child, and she was very concerned about him spending another night without heat.

Brad Cumming: Guys were cold, guys were soaked. They couldn’t feel their fingers, they couldn’t feel their toes. But the important part was, for us, the pride factor was we want that power on, we want that kid to be warm, and we want that kid to be safe.

Lynch: And Aaron, when they finally did get the power back on, it was about 9 or 10 at night, they could hear applause rolling up and down the street from everybody who was just waiting for it to come back on. That was applause for them.

Schachter: Well, that’s nice, that’s one success story. I imagine they’ll be there for a while yet, though.

Lynch: They’re in it for as long as they are needed, and then they’ll turn around and head back up to Canada and wait for the storms to hit there.

Schachter: The CBC’s Laura Lynch. Thanks for joining us.

Lynch: You’re welcome.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

The World’s coverage of London 2012 includes features and interviews, including ongoing reporting from the Games by correspondent Alex Gallafent.

Plenty of Olympic Gold Still Up for Grabs in London

The 2012 Summer Games draw to a close this weekend, but there are still many medals up for grabs. More >>

When the 2012 Party is Over

This summer Britons have feasted on national celebrations including the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and London’s Olympic Games. When the Paralympic Games conclude in a few weeks, Britain will have to get back to reality. And that might not be easy. More >>

Italian Fails Doping Test and British Cycling Star Breaks Gold Medal Record

Anchor Lisa Mullins gets a round-up of news from the Olympic Games from The World’s Alex Gallafent in London. Italy’s Olympic 50km race walk champion Alex Schwazer failed a doping test ahead of his arrival in London and a British knight of the realm wins a record-breaking gold medal at the Velodrome. More >>

Debate Over China’s Win-At-All Cost Philosophy

China places a lot of pressure on its Olympic athletes to bring home the gold as winning is considered a metaphor for the country’s success and power. More >>

How Yorkshire Athletes Boost the British Olympic Team

If the English county of Yorkshire were a nation in its own right, it’d be near the top end of the current Olympic medal table. Athletes from Yorkshire are responsible for much of Britain’s current success at London 2012. More >>

Katie Taylor: Ireland’s Knock-Out

Taylor is Ireland’s top gold medal hope and was the country’s flag bearer at the opening ceremonies. More >>

Celebrating the Amateur Athlete in Poetry

Anchor Aaron Schachter talks with The World’s Alex Gallafent about the race to determine the world’s fastest man; the London Games of 1908; and poetry to celebrate the amateur athlete. More >>

London Mayor Boris Johnson and his Olympic City

The World’s Alex Gallafent reports on events in London, including the death of a cyclist hit by a bus outside the Olympic Park. Plus a look at the growing political clout of London Mayor Boris Johnson. More >>

Pie, Mash, And Liquor in the Olympic City

The World’s Alex Gallafent takes us to a traditional business in the East End of London: a pie and liquor shop. More >>

Is China Getting Bad Press at the London Games?

Orville Schell, a long-time China observer, notices that the country has been receiving a lot of bad press. He argues that’s partly because of its bravado. More >>

How to Kill Time Between Olympic Events

Anchor Aaron Schachter gets an update on the talk at the Olympics from The World’s Alex Gallafent in London. Beyond the sporting news, Alex also takes a brief shopping trip to the ‘official department store provider’ to the 2012 London games. More >>

Ye Shiwen Row: China Reacts to Doping Allegation

Chinese social media websites have been busy with an outpouring of anger at the doping allegation against swimmer Ye Shiwen. More >>

Account Suspension Prompts Olympic Twitter Debacle

The hashtag #twitterfail is trending today above #NBCfail, after Twitter suspended the account of an outspoken critic of NBC’s coverage for more than 48 hours. Twitter and NBC have a partnership agreement for the Olympic Games. Anchor Aaron Schachter speaks with media writer, blogger and teacher, Dan Gillmor. More >>

Olympic Outrage: Why So Many Empty Seats?

Host Aaron Schachter has been watching the Olympic coverage and is troubled by one thing: “Why are there so many empty seats?” Aaron talks with Mihir Bose who’s covering the Olympics for the Evening Standard. More >>

Excitement Mounts, Athletes Protest, and Poetry

Olympic Round-Up: Anchor Aaron Schachter talks with The World’s Alex Gallafent in London about the latest news from Olympics; how the city is still buzzing, and how some athletes are protesting sponsorship restrictions, and explores Olympic poetry. More >>

Olympic Dreams in Times of Austerity

A nation suffering major economic stress right now is still bidding for the 2020 Games. More >>

London’s Summer Olympics Get Under Way

On Friday, a global TV audience witnessed a spectacular and idiosyncratically British opening ceremony at Olympic Stadium. The World’s Alex Gallafent spoke with visitors from around the globe ahead of London’s big night. More >>

Families of the Victims of 1972 Munich Massacre Call for Minute of Silence

Families of the Israeli athletes killed at the 1972 Munich Games continue to press for an official moment of silence at Friday’s opening ceremony in London. But Olympic officials say the launch of London 2012 is not the appropriate forum for such a remembrance. The World’s Alex Gallafent reports. More >>

An Olympic Task: Catching Drug Cheats at the London Games

The London Summer Olympics are already over for some athletes. Bans for nine track and field athletes were announced this week after the athletes failed drug tests. More >>

Former Olympian David Moorcroft Recalls Doping Controversies of Games Past

The practice of doping is believed to have been at its peak during the 1970s and 80s, and back then testing for drugs was less reliable. More >>

Reflecting on London 1948: The Austerity Olympics

London last hosted the Olympic Games in 1948, a time of post-war austerity in Britain. The success of those Games augers well for London 2012; the current Games take place against a backdrop of economic gloom. The World’s Alex Gallafent reports. More >>

BBC Journalist Who Lost Leg in Iraq Carries Olympic Torch

The Olympic torch arrived in London this week, ahead of the opening ceremony on Friday. One man who carried the torch part of the way was BBC producer Stuart Hughes who lost his lower leg in 2003 while covering the war in Iraq. More >>

US Olympic Table Tennis Team Trains the Chinese Way

The US table tennis team is made up of players who are American-born, but all of Chinese descent. More >>

40 Years Ago, Soviet Gymnast Olga Korbut Dazzled the World

Forty years ago in Munich, Olga Korbut changed the way Americans watched the Olympics. And the tiny pig-tailed athlete inspired girls around the world to take up gymnastics. More >>

Former Olympic Cyclist Tommy Godwin Remembers 1948 London Games

London’s Herne Hill Velodrome is a vestige of London’s other Olympic Games in 1948. Reporter Laura Lynch speaks with cyclist Tommy Godwin who competed in those games. The Bronze medalist is now 91, but he still gets on the bike. More >>

Can’t use the Olympic Rings? Try a British Flag

The International Olympic Committee doesn’t like businesses using the Olympics logo, or words like gold, to market their products. But, as The World’s Alex Gallafent reports, Britons are finding ways around the rules. More >>

Male Athletes Fly First Class, Heathrow Strike, and More

The World’s Alex Gallafent is about to board his flight to London to cover the Games and anchor Marco Werman gets an update on this week’s stories. More >>

Pickpockets Target London Games

The British police say they’ve received intelligence that organized gangs from South America and Eastern Europe are planning a crime blitz during the Summer Olympic Games. More >>

Traffic Jams, Bad Weather, Security Concerns: It Must Be The Olympics

London’s Olympic Games are about to begin, but British bellyaching about weather and traffic is already in full swing, reports The World’s Alex Gallafent. More >>

Judo Athlete Not Allowed to Represent Kosovo in Olympics

Kosovo’s contested statehood has made the International Olympic Committee not allow Majlinda Kelmendi to represent her country at London 2012. More >>

Meb Keflezighi Eyes Gold at London 2012

Meb Keflezighi is the oldest man to win the US Olympian marathon trials. More >>

London 2012: Dreary Weather, Security, and Chaos on the Subway

British newspapers are full of complaints about the dreary weather, security costs, and chaos on the roads and subway. More >>

Getting Ready for the London 2012 Summer Olympics

The London Olympic Games are only three weeks away and there is much excitement in the British Capital. But The World’s Alex Gallafent tells Marco Werman that there are also concerns about security – and, of course, that English summer weather. More >>

London Olympics: Tube Trouble and Anti-Aircraft Missiles

London is slowly, but surely giving itself away to the great, grand and possibly overwhelming spectacle of the Summer Olympics. We who live here are being told to be ready to welcome the world. But we are also being warned it could be more than a little inconvenient. More >>

It’s the location of a new data center being built by Facebook.

It will consist of three massive buildings to house servers – the machines that store all the information and process all the mouse clicks that keep “The Cloud” afloat.

This place is cold – it’s 550 miles north of Stockholm.

Final clue — this city is considered the capital of Swedish Lapland.

Luleå is the answer to the Geo Quiz.

Facebook isn’t the only high-tech company building a server farm in the north.

While the likes of Facebook and Google have headquarters in California, their servers can be anywhere.

And more and more, these server farms are being built in chilly, northern places – it’s one way of keeping energy costs down, because the machines have to be kept cool.

The countries of Scandinavia are now competing to attract this sort of server business.

The World’s Laura Lynch visited another server site – this one on Rennesoy Island in Norway.

Subscribe and follow:

• Latest Edition Podcast on iTunes
• Latest Edition Podcast via RSS
• The World on Facebook
• Follow @pritheworld
  

A team of UN observers is currently in Syria as part of the joint UN-Arab League peace plan. The observers began deploying this April.

The World’s Laura Lynch is one of the few foreign journalists allowed into Syria.

Follow @lauralynchworld

On the Frontline of Violence in Douma

Life in the besieged Syrian city of Douma can be deceptively calm, until the soldiers show up. Both the Syrian government and armed rebels blame each other for the violence there, that doesn’t seem to be lessening despite the UN observers now in the country. More>>>

My last report from #Syria.In #Douma, met FSA, doctor and nurse who face arrest for treating the wounded. bit.ly/Ju1UC2 @pritheworld

— lauralynchworld (@lauralynchworld) May 17, 2012

UN Monitors Close to Violence in Syria

Syrian government forces reportedly opened fire on a crowd in a northern town that was being visited by UN monitors on Tuesday. Several people were killed. The UN also said that vehicles in the observers’ convoy were also damaged during the visit. More>>>

Difficult day for #UN monitors in Syria.Reportedly witness shootings near #Hama then a bomb hits their convoy.Cars damaged, monitors safe.

— lauralynchworld (@lauralynchworld) May 15, 2012

How Violence is Affecting Everyday Life

After her return from Syria, Laura Lynch tells host Lisa Mullins what she heard about how the upheaval there is affecting everyday life. More>>>

To walk around the Old City in #Damascus is to sense nothing is wrong.Except that people are too scared to speak to you. And few tourists.

— lauralynchworld (@lauralynchworld) May 13, 2012

Pressure Mounts on UN Monitors

The World’s Laura Lynch took a trip with UN monitors to the Syrian city of Dmeir. It’s an opposition stronghold outside of Damascus. Residents there are furious at the Syrian government for the shelling of their city. And they’re increasingly angry at UN monitors for not protecting them. The World’s Laura Lynch reports on what Syrian forces and residents are saying. More>>>

At the edge of #Deir, army officers admit they can’t control the town, but act with restraint while under fire. #Syria

— lauralynchworld (@lauralynchworld) May 11, 2012

Damascus ‘Suicide Blasts’ Kill Dozens

At least 55 people are killed in a double suicide car bombing near an intelligence complex in the Syrian capital, Damascus, officials say. More>>>

#Damascus.The crater today’s #bomb blast left behind along with much destruction, death and injury. #Syria twitter.com/lauralynchworl…

— lauralynchworld (@lauralynchworld) May 10, 2012

Accusations, Continuing Clashes, Leave Little Room for Trust in Syria or Sustainable Ceasefire

Just a day after international envoy Kofi Annan warned that Syria could slide into a civil war, there was more trouble in the country. Syrian rebels are reported to have killed seven pro-government militiamen in a Damascus suburb. And the head of the UN military observer mission got an up close taste of the violence today when a bomb exploded near his convoy. More>>>

#Syria foreign ministry blasts #US #UN ambo Rice as uninformed, and politcally motivated when she says gov’t not implementing peace plan.

— lauralynchworld (@lauralynchworld) May 9, 2012

On the Streets of Homs

The World’s Laura Lynch talks with the residents of the war-ravaged city of Homs. The Syrian city remains under assault despite a United Nations cease-fire. More>>>

Visited #Homs today.Gunfire in #Khalidiya and so much destruction in #BabaAmr.And people just trying to survive. twitter.com/lauralynchworl…

— lauralynchworld (@lauralynchworld) May 8, 2012

UN Monitors Visit Homs

On May 8, UN monitors visited the Syrian city of Homs, the site of violence in recent months between government forces and opposition activists. Laura Lynch joined the monitors and speaks with Marco Werman about what the expedition was like. More>>>

Syria Crisis: Elections Take Place in Shadow of Protests

The parliamentary contest in Syria has been billed by the regime as key to President Bashar al-Assad’s political reforms. More>>>

Read tweets about Syria

Several people were killed.

The UN also said that vehicles in the observers’ convoy were also damaged during the visit.

Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with The World’s Laura Lynch, who was in Syria last week and at times was allowed to travel around the country following UN monitors.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is “The World”. United Nations monitors in Syria found themselves in the midst of violence today. It happened in the northern town of Khan Sheikhoun. Opposition activists say while a group of observers was visiting the town, government troops opened fire on a funeral procession. Several people were reported killed, and then the UN convoy was hit by a blast. The UN says three vehicles were damaged, but none of the observers were hurt. The World’s Laura Lynch was in Syria all last week and at times was allowed to travel around the country following the UN observers on their visits. There is a video posted online of today’s attack. We can’t confirm though who the source is.

[Clip plays] [Speaking Arabic]

Mullins: Laura Lynch, so we’re hearing this big blast which apparently damaged at least the front of one of the white UN SUVs. We hear people screaming. What else is going on there?

Laura Lynch: Well, you can see four UN vehicles lined up one behind the other and when the blast goes off, it hits the very front vehicle in front of the convoy and that seems to be where most of the damage hit. And then people just start to scatter. The UN vehicles stay in place, the monitors stay inside the vehicles, but I’d say within a few seconds, they drive out of there very, very quickly.

Mullins: Now, before we get to the perpetrators, when you were in Syria last week you followed, as we said, the UN observers. How exposed in general are the UN envoys to violence like this?

Lynch: Well, you think about this, Lisa, these monitors are driving into areas where there is still very live conflict going on, and I went with them into one town where the army did not accompany them inside, the Syrian army, because said it wasn’t safe. It wasn’t safe for them because it was a rebel stronghold, and they drove into the middle of town. I turned back before they did with my crew. When those monitors came out the rear window of one of their cars was smashed and the mirror of another car was smashed. We do know that another convoy was hit by a bomb last week. None of these monitors are wearing anything more than a bulletproof vest and they’re in cars that are not armored and they’re wearing soft hats. So these are people who are exposed to a degree and are vulnerable and they are going into the middle of this.

Mullins: The government of Syria and the opposition to the government in Syria routinely blame each other for this kind of violence against the monitors. We don’t know who caused it in this case. Who generally gains from harm being inflicted on the UN monitors?

Lynch: Oh, Lisa, that is the difficult question to answer here. You hear all kinds of conspiracy theories. I have talked to people who support the opposition, who say they don’t trust the UN monitors, that they think they are actually acting as a little more than spies for the regime and that they will simply and tell the regime what people are telling them. If you talk to government spokesmen, they want them there, but I have also heard from government supporters who don’t like the monitors there either. They see it as the rest of the world sort of looking down on Syria and they think Syria can take care of itself. So as the violence continues, all we know for certain is that the UN keeps getting caught up in the middle of this, the monitors, and it makes it increasingly challenging for them to continue doing their job, but they do keep saying that they are there to do the work and that they’re going to continue doing it.

Mullins: The World’s Laura Lynch in London. Thank you, Laura.

Lynch: You’re welcome

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Laura’s coverage from Syria

Difficult day for #UN monitors in Syria.Reportedly witness shootings near #Hama then a bomb hits their convoy.Cars damaged, monitors safe.

— lauralynchworld (@lauralynchworld) May 15, 2012

The World’s Laura Lynch has just returned from Syria, where she had the opportunity to ask people in Damascus about how the upheaval there is affecting everyday life.

Lynch says that the violence there has caused some people to move their families to different parts of the city during the weekend, when violence is usually worst.

Others told her that they have put photos of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in their windows as a way to try to dissuade security forces from coming into their homes.

Laura Lynch talks with Lisa Mullins about what she heard from the residents of Damascus.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is “The World”. The crisis in Syria is looking more like civil war. The violence today focused on the central city of Rastan. Opposition forces says the city was shelled overnight by the Syrian Army. Clashes followed between the army and activists. The activists say thirty people were killed, twenty-three of them soldiers. The tension in Syria is rising by the day. It’s palpable in Damascus. The capital was hit last week by twin suicide bombings. The World’s Laura Lynch left Damascus this morning. She’s now in London. She was in Syria all last week and spoke with a variety of Syrians about the crisis. Most of them didn’t want to speak into a microphone. They were afraid of repercussions. But some did agree to speak informally about how the crisis has affected their lives.

Laura Lynch: For some of the people I talked to, it meant taking strategic moves during different days of the week. Most of the demonstrations happen on Fridays which are the days when people gather in mosques for Friday prayers, and usually the protests spill out into the street after that and that’s when there are clashes with the security forces. So some people are actually moving their families out of their homes on Fridays and Saturdays to other, what they consider to be safer locations for those two days until things calm down again because they can hear the gunfire. They think it’s too much of a risk to their family, so they get out and then they go back in on Sunday and they’re there for the rest of the week.

Mullins: So people are afraid of the violence. How scared are people of the Assad regime of the government?

Lynch: I think I got a sense of that in talking to one man who is in a neighborhood that he says actually hasn’t had a lot of protests and demonstrations, but it has experienced security agents going door-to-door searching for sympathizers with the opposition, and he would like to see change in his country. He’s not necessarily a big supporter of Assad, but his children are so frightened that they have repeatedly put a picture of Assad in the window of the house to try to deter anyone from coming to their house and searching it. He also says that they’ve put a picture of Assad as the screensaver on the laptop computers so then when the open up the computer, anyone who’s looking at it will see and think that they are very pro-Assad. So that gives you some measure of the fear that exists, and these are in young people. I suspect that that’s true for some older people as well, but the young are feeling especially vulnerable. I did talk to one other man who recounted a really hard conversation he was having with his eight-year-old son who just didn’t understand what was going on in his country. He was trying to explain to him, he asked him, “Why were Syrians fighting each other?” Those basic kind of child’s questions about what’s going on in the country that seem so unimaginable to him, and this man and his wife and his child are now trying to seriously consider whether it’s time to get out of Syria, as are many others. Those are people who have the means to leave Syria and could live somewhere else. For many others that’s simply not an option.

Mullins: By the way, did he tell you, that father whose child asked why Syrians are fighting each other, did he tell you what his response was?

Lynch: He said he was trying to explain it in the most simple terms possible, but it was still difficult for an eight-year-old to understand that there could be people of the same country that were clashing with each other. And he’s still not sure that his son actually understands what’s going on, and he says, “Well, why should he? This doesn’t make sense to those of us who are adults.”

Mullins: Did you speak to anybody who is pro-government? Pro-Assad?

Lynch: Yes, and when you speak to those people, they are not terribly shy about speaking to you at all, on tape or not, and I’ve met several over the days in Damascus who speak fiercely proudly of the president and of his government and how they’ve given Syria so much, a good economy, they’ve given Syria it’s stability, and that the people who are fighting them are thugs, they are foreign funded fighters, and they don’t want them on Syrian soil anymore. They believe that these people have ruined the country that was doing so well. They also say to me that Assad is making steps toward what they consider to be true reform and that he just needs more time. So even they, in their support of Assad, recognize the need for reform in their country. They just don’t want it to happen this way.

Mullins: The time that you were there in Damascus, Syria, did you find, Laura, that it’s a city where you can still get a cup of coffee or go out to a restaurant? Or is it more a city in lockdown?

Lynch: It still is in many parts of the city, large parts of the city, very easy to move around, very easy to go to a nice restaurant and get a nice meal, as you said, go to a nice cafe, get a nice cup of coffee. It seems, if you’re in certain parts of town, that there is no problem at all and you’ll see lots of Damascenes going out and enjoying themselves. But if you look around, and you don’t have to look far, all I had to do was look in the hallways of my incredibly empty hotel, I don’t think I saw another person staying on the same floor as me the whole I was there, you get a sense that the tourism industry at the very least is taking a huge hit in Syria. And it depends on that industry. I saw very few tourist there. There were several journalists around and some businessmen, but, boy, they are really suffering for lack of people coming into the country.

Mullins: The World’s Laura Lynch who has just returned from Syria. Thank you, Laura.

Lynch: You’re welcome.

Mullins: You can find more of Laura’s reporting from Syria, including her pictures of the devastated city of Homs, that’s at theworld.org.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Read more from Laura here.

More of Laura’s coverage from inside Syria

Visualize tweets for this story: Click on the image below to see tweets

It is necessary but grim work. Emergency crews clear up the debris that’s scattered across the roadway. With each scrape across the charred pavement, the shovels pick up burnt metal, bits of clothing and even human flesh.

Nearby, the shells of what used to be more than twenty cars and buses show just how powerful these bombs were. So too do the two craters, each several feet deep. The bombs hit just outside a huge military intelligence building, ripping off its façade. But the blasts shattered windows and lives many yards away.

#Damascus.The crater today’s #bomb blast left behind along with much destruction, death and injury. #Syria twitter.com/lauralynchworl…

— lauralynchworld (@lauralynchworld) May 10, 2012

Men at a small garage are trying to pull away metal sheeting that landed in front of the entrance. The owner sits inside, staring in disbelief at the scene around him.

“It sounded more than an earthquake than an explosion,” the man said.

The first explosion hit just before 8:00 as he, his wife and three daughters slept. He grabbed his children and moved them back just before the second blast laid waste to their bedrooms. Everyone is alive – he kisses his hands then raises them upward in gratitude.

“Eh, Hamdilluah, Oh my God thank you,” he said.

But with so many others dead and wounded, there is anger aimed at those he blames – other nations who support the opposition.

“This is their gift to us?” he asked. “Is this democracy, is this freedom? I don’t think this is freedom and think this is a conspiracy against my country.”

At a military hospital, the first casualties came in within minutes.

One soldier who didn’t want to give his name, lay in his hospital bed, his face and legs pockmarked with shrapnel wounds. He said his back has deep bruises and his feet are wrapped in bandages. He was in the military building when the blasts hit. He made it out to the street and found a gruesome scene.

“There were cars that were burned out completely, there was fire all around us, he says. All the houses across the road were smashed. There were people buried under the rubble, including women and children,” he said.

This is the latest, and by far the worst in a series of bombings in Damascus in the last several weeks.

Doctor Majid Hassan, tending to another soldier, said it represents a new and alarming shift in what has already been a long and violent uprising.

Back at the scene of the bombings, the cleanup continues as do the questions about just who was behind them. As much as people here blame terrorists supported by foreign interests, the opposition insists it’s a government operation aimed at discrediting them.

Whatever the truth, today’s assault on one Damascus neighborhood drives the chances for peace back even further.

More of Laura’s coverage from inside Syria

Read tweets about Syria

Syrian rebels are reported to have killed seven pro-government militiamen in a Damascus suburb.

And the head of the UN military observer mission got an up-close taste of the violence Wednesday when a bomb exploded near his convoy.

The World’s Laura Lynch reports.

See Laura Lynch’s slideshow ‘On The Streets Of Homs’ from Tuesday here