Fear reigns in Syria city at the center of the uprising Reporting from Homs, Syria - Gunfire crackled in the alleyways as Ramah Sawah hurried home from work. The 30-year-old grade school English teacher quickened her pace, hoping to make it back before the fighting picked up. "After 2 p.m. or 2:30 p.m., we can't leave our houses at all," she said. They are just shooting at people. Even on a short visit organized Monday by the government, the fear coursing through this central industrial city was tangible. Tanks were visible on the outskirts. Many stores were shuttered. And the letters "S.O.S." were splashed across a bullet-scarred wall in bold black paint. Homs, Syria's third-largest city, is at the center of a 10-month-old uprising that the United Nations estimates has claimed more than 5,000 lives. The Arab League on Sunday called for President Bashar Assad to hand over power to one of his two vice presidents and for Syria to form a unity government. Government officials say they have lost control of large parts of Homs to what they describe as foreign-backed "armed gangs": military defectors fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army and other armed elements of what began in March as a mostly peaceful protest movement. Officials who accompanied journalists on the two-hour ride from Damascus, the capital, repeatedly told the reporters they would not be visiting districts such Bab Amro, which residents say has endured months of government shelling and fierce clashes. "If anyone wants to go to areas they think might be interesting for them, they can go in [the] future, but not on this trip," a government minder said firmly. It's not safe. In Hamadiyeh, a predominantly Christian neighborhood that has remained relatively calm, tense-looking troops armed with automatic rifles peered from sandbagged checkpoints at every intersection along the main thoroughfares. "Don't talk to the soldier," a resident named Mohammed Khalil chided a reporter. You are distracting him from his work and he can't protect us. Workers at a local kebab restaurant explained that the neighborhood is wedged between trouble spots and said "armed people" pass through to get from one side to the other. A 24-year-old, Milad, who did not want his full name published, pointed at bullet holes in the building behind a checkpoint. "Fifteen days ago, there was a guy on a bicycle," Milad said. He pulled a weapon from his pocket and started shooting at the checkpoint. Homs is a microcosm of the major ethnic and religious groups that make up Syria, and residents say the conflict here is turning increasingly sectarian. Members of Assad's Allawite sect, a Shiite Muslim offshoot, dominate the security forces, and the opposition is mostly, though not exclusively, Sunni. Sawah, a Sunni who lives in the predominantly Allawite neighborhood where French journalist Gilles Jacquier was killed in shelling during a media visit Jan. 11, said her area frequently takes fire from a neighboring district under the control of armed gangs. "Our lives are only about guns and bullets," she said. I can't sleep anymore if I don't hear it. She said there have been retaliatory kidnappings on both sides. "They are trying to drag us into a sectarian war," she said. At the military hospital, troops waited in a cold and misty courtyard festooned with flags and a giant poster of Assad to bury three members of the security forces they said were killed in an ambush the previous day. On cue, a small group of relatives and hospital staff in white coats began chanting for the television cameras: "With our blood and our souls, we will sacrifice for you, Bashar." In the morgue, soldiers displayed what they said were the blackened remains of four of the 11 people killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack Sunday targeting a minibus taking military personnel and civilians to Damascus. They were burned beyond recognition. Dr. Haitham Othman, who manages the hospital, said the facility receives about four or five bodies and treats about 20 wounded every day. "It's a big conspiracy against the country," he said, accusing "colonial powers and some Arab countries" of instigating the violence. Opposition activists said security forces killed 12 people in the Homs region Monday. They are terrified of the military hospital. New York-based Human Rights Watch reported last year that wounded demonstrators were beaten, tortured and killed there. Othman rejected the charges, saying, "We are doctors and we take an oath." He said the facility treats only security force members and their families. But staff members said they also receive civilians and criminals. "We treat them the same as all patients," one doctor said. What happens next is a matter for the police. She too was afraid. "There is a serious threat on our lives because we are doctors in a military hospital," she said, asking not to be identified. I'm worried about what is happening to our country. Special correspondent Rima Marrouch contributed to this report