The wife of Syria's President Bashar Assad declared that she was the family's "real dictator," according to an email leaked to regime opponents, a British newspaper reported Monday.

British-born Asma Assad's messages imply that she occupies an important spot the dictator's inner circle, the Daily Telegraph reported.
This and a slew of other alleged email exchanges among members of the Syrian elite have been spilling out for days, shedding light on the workings of the embattled government as it continues its violent crackdown on protesters. More than 8,000 people have been killed since the start of the Syrian uprising just over a year ago, according to U.N. figures.

Syria email hack points to new 'information war'

Late Sunday, a firefight broke out between Free Syrian Army rebels and forces loyal to Assad in Mezze, a main district of the capital Damascus, witnesses told Reuters, while a car bomb ripped through a residential area of Syria's second city Aleppo, a day after twin blasts killed 27 in the capital Damascus.

The men in the video move from room to room, stumbling upon bodies heaped in a corner, blood-spattered walls, and a dead child's faces wrenched in terror. As the camera pans over a pile of bodies, a tiny squeal is heard. A small child suddenly crawls over a body toward the filmmaker. According to CNN, he must have been hiding among his deceased family for days.

Although it is nearly impossible to independently verify the information posted online by activists in Syria due to the regime's restrictions on media access, CNN is "confident of the video's provenance." The footage is reportedly from early February in Al-Sabeel, a neighborhood in Homs, Syria.

As activists and citizen journalists continue to disseminate information from Syria to the outside world, horrifying footage has flooded the international media. On Tuesday, a video purporting to show a boy shot in the back by sniper fire was posted on YouTube. Earlier this week, at least 45 women and children were stabbed and burned in Karm al-Zeitoun, Homs, according to a grassroots opposition network.