Homs , Syria ( CNN ) -- A freelance cameraman who visited Homs recently put together a video that provides a rare glimpse of life in the embattled city and an even rarer close-up of the opposition movement in Syria . At the headquarters of the government secret police , the cameraman -- who uses the name Mani to avoid retribution by the government if he returns -- finds himself in the thick of a battle . Some 200 members of the Free Syrian Army , made of military defectors , are involved in the attack . They explode a bomb below a rooftop position , where government snipers are trapped . In the video , portions of which CNN aired Friday , the opposition appears organized , their members communicating by walkie-talkie and engaging in fierce fighting . Casualties are taken via minibus to a makeshift field hospital , where they are placed on thin mats on the floor . `` My eye ! My eye ! '' shouts one man whose eye had been targeted by a bullet . Mani 's camera follows opposition fighters as they enter the government building , where room-to-room and stairwell-to-stairwell fighting ensues . Finally , as bullets continue to fly , the opposition fighters make off with boxes of ammunition so they can return to fight another day . After 20 hours , 15 opposition fighters have been killed , 40 wounded . The next day , the building is gutted by local residents . Not all the battles are so bloody . Mani says they are sometimes able to persuade government forces to cede ground without firing a shot . `` They always try , first , to make negotiations work , '' Mani says . `` They talk with the officer , they talk with the soldiers , and they offer them either to defect , either to surrender , and leave the checkpoint . And sometimes it works . '' Civilian volunteers are plentiful ; more and more , they are being joined by defectors from government forces , Mani says . Across Homs , some estimates put the FSA strength at more than 1,000 . Each neighborhood has its own command , but they sometimes combine forces to improve their odds against the much larger and better-armed government forces . Some soldiers who do n't desert nevertheless sell their weapons or ammunition to the opposition , the cameraman adds . `` There are many people who are in favor of them , who feel they are in favor of the opposition , '' Mani says . Down one street , his camera shows a long line of residents lined up outside a bakery for bread . `` Because of the snipers , people are taking more than they need , '' says the man who is handing out the loaves . `` That 's why it 's crowded . '' Two days earlier , in a nearby district , hundreds of residents fill the streets to mourn the deaths of 138 people in overnight shelling by government forces . Without enough coffins to go around , many of the dead are wrapped in white shrouds . `` Shelling people is what cowards and scoundrels do , '' the imam says . `` Be careful of gathering in public . '' `` We are going to heaven ! '' the crowd chants , their fists pumping the air . `` There are millions of us ! '' Mani comes upon a woman just as she learns that her son has been fatally shot by a sniper . `` He is my son ! My rock ! '' she wails . `` I have no man ! He is my man ! '' Her son , a former supporter of the regime , bears a tattoo on his chest that says `` Assad . '' Next to that is the entry point for the bullet . A couple of blocks away , the shelling that has pockmarked much of the city has spared a district where many residents belong to the Alawite sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs . Homs is now a patchwork divided along sectarian lines . CNN 's Nic Robertson contributed to this report .
It gives a rare glimpse of violence in the streets of Damascus . ` ` My eye ! my eye ! '' cries a wounded man . Number of military defectors ' strength at more than 1,000 in Damascus .