苦肉计上演：西方名记者Marie Colvin在霍姆斯意外身亡

泰晤士报的战地记者，曾采访卡大佐的Marie Colvin和另外一个法国摄影师在霍姆斯遭到政府军的炮轰，而身亡

Colvin, an American reporter for the British newspaper, and photographer Remi Ochlik both died in the attack, the French government said.

Shells hit the house in which the two veteran war correspondents were staying, then they were killed by a rocket as they tried to make their escape, activists told Reuters.

Colvin, known for wearing a black eye patch after she lost an eye due to a shrapnel wound while working in Sri Lanka in 2001, was the only journalist from a British newspaper in Homs.

At least two other Western journalists - including the British photographer Paul Conroy who was on an assignment with Colvin - were reportedly wounded after more than 10 rockets hit the house.

Only yesterday, Colvin reported on shelling in the city in a video for the BBC, as well as CNN, in which she described the bloodshed as “absolutely sickening”.

“I watched a little baby die today,” the award-winning reporter said. “Absolutely horrific.

“There is just shells, rockets and tank fire pouring into civilian areas of this city and it is just unrelenting.”

In a report published in the Sunday Times over the weekend, Colvin spoke of the citizens of Homs "waiting for a massacre".

"The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a loved one," she wrote.

In 2010, Colvin spoke about the dangers of reporting on war zones at a Fleet Street ceremony honouring fallen journalists.

She said: "Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers, children

"Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice.

"We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado?

"Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price."

On Tuesday night Colvin, who is in her fifties, also appeared on Channel 4 and ITV news bulletins, reporting on the bombardment of the opposition stronghold.

Ochlik was born in France in 1983 and first covered conflict in Haiti at the age of 20. Most recently he photographed the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

Earlier this month, he won first prize in the general news stories category of the World Press Photo contest for images taken during the Libyan conflict.

The two were killed when a shell crashed into a makeshift media centre set up by anti-regime activists in Baba Amr district, activist Omar Shaker told the AFP news agency.

He told Reuters that two other journalists were injured - Conroy, and a female American journalist, who he said was in a very serious condition.

"Up to this point we have two dead. They are still under the rubble because the shelling hasn't stopped. No one can get close to the house.

"There is another American female journalist who is in a really serious condition, she really needs urgent care."

Pro-opposition areas of Homs have been under a sustained bombardment from government forces since February 3, leaving several hundred people dead.

Colvin, who was married three times, won the British press award for Best Foreign Correspondent on two occasions, as well as awards from the International Women's Media Foundation.

The journalist from Oyster Bay, New York, specialised in the Arab and Persian world but also worked in Chechnya, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka.

Last week New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid died of an asthma attack while trying to reach an opposition zone.

French television reporter Gilles Jacquier was killed in Homs last month as a shell exploded amid a group of journalists covering protests in the city on a visit organised by the Syrian authorities.

Violence meanwhile continues to spread across Syria. Several YouTube videos taken by local activists in Idlib, which could not be independently confirmed, showed bodies of young men with bullet wounds and hands tied lying dead in streets.

The men, all civilians, were mostly shot in the head or chest on Tuesday in their homes or in streets in the villages of Idita, Iblin and Balshon in Idlib province near the border with Turkey, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said.

"Military forces chased civilians in these villages, arrested them and killed them without hesitation. They concentrated on male youths and whoever did not manage to escape was to be killed," the organisation said in a statement.

"Responsibility for this massacre lies with the general commander of the military and armed forces, Bashar al-Assad," the statement said, adding that only one youth survived the shootings.

One video shows the body of three youths, one visibly shot in the chest, on the floor of a house in Balshon.

"This is martyr Hassan Abdel Qadi al-Saeed, his brother Hussein and (their relative) Bashir Mohammad al-Saeed. They were liquidated by Assad's forces in the Feb. 21 massacre," a voice of a man showing the bodies says, with the sound of women wailing in the background.

The developments come as the United States appeared to ease their stance on eventually arming the Syrian opposition, saying if a political solution to the crisis were impossible it might have to consider other options.

The comments, made by officials at both the White House and the State Department, marked a shift in emphasis by Washington, which thus far has stressed its policy of not arming the opposition and has said little about alternatives.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with representatives of some 70 countries in Tunis on Friday for the first "Friends of Syria" meeting to coordinate the international community's next steps to respond the nearly year-long uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"We still believe that a political solution is what's needed in Syria," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

"We don't want to take actions that would contribute to the further militarisation of Syria, because that could take the country down a dangerous path. But we don't rule out additional measures."

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, asked if the United States was shifting its stance on arming the rebels, said Washington did not want to see the violence increase and was concentrating on political efforts to halt the bloodshed.

"That said ... if we can't get Assad to yield to the pressure that we are all bringing to bear, we may have to consider additional measures."

She declined to elaborate on what those measures might be.

The United States and its allies hope this week's Tunis meeting will allow them to begin drawing up a plan for Syria after Russia and China vetoed a Western-backed Arab League peace plan at the UN Security Council.

US officials suggest the meeting will focus on ways to increase economic pressure on Assad through additional sanctions and to ramp up humanitarian relief for victims of the repression.

But Arab diplomats have suggested that formal or informal moves to arm the rebels may also be discussed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ ... killed-in-Homs.html泰晤士报的战地记者，曾采访卡大佐的Marie Colvin和另外一个法国摄影师在霍姆斯遭到政府军的炮轰，而身亡

Colvin, an American reporter for the British newspaper, and photographer Remi Ochlik both died in the attack, the French government said.

Shells hit the house in which the two veteran war correspondents were staying, then they were killed by a rocket as they tried to make their escape, activists told Reuters.

Colvin, known for wearing a black eye patch after she lost an eye due to a shrapnel wound while working in Sri Lanka in 2001, was the only journalist from a British newspaper in Homs.

At least two other Western journalists - including the British photographer Paul Conroy who was on an assignment with Colvin - were reportedly wounded after more than 10 rockets hit the house.

Only yesterday, Colvin reported on shelling in the city in a video for the BBC, as well as CNN, in which she described the bloodshed as “absolutely sickening”.

“I watched a little baby die today,” the award-winning reporter said. “Absolutely horrific.

“There is just shells, rockets and tank fire pouring into civilian areas of this city and it is just unrelenting.”

In a report published in the Sunday Times over the weekend, Colvin spoke of the citizens of Homs "waiting for a massacre".

"The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a loved one," she wrote.

In 2010, Colvin spoke about the dangers of reporting on war zones at a Fleet Street ceremony honouring fallen journalists.

She said: "Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers, children

"Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice.

"We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado?

"Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price."

On Tuesday night Colvin, who is in her fifties, also appeared on Channel 4 and ITV news bulletins, reporting on the bombardment of the opposition stronghold.

Ochlik was born in France in 1983 and first covered conflict in Haiti at the age of 20. Most recently he photographed the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

Earlier this month, he won first prize in the general news stories category of the World Press Photo contest for images taken during the Libyan conflict.

The two were killed when a shell crashed into a makeshift media centre set up by anti-regime activists in Baba Amr district, activist Omar Shaker told the AFP news agency.

He told Reuters that two other journalists were injured - Conroy, and a female American journalist, who he said was in a very serious condition.

"Up to this point we have two dead. They are still under the rubble because the shelling hasn't stopped. No one can get close to the house.

"There is another American female journalist who is in a really serious condition, she really needs urgent care."

Pro-opposition areas of Homs have been under a sustained bombardment from government forces since February 3, leaving several hundred people dead.

Colvin, who was married three times, won the British press award for Best Foreign Correspondent on two occasions, as well as awards from the International Women's Media Foundation.

The journalist from Oyster Bay, New York, specialised in the Arab and Persian world but also worked in Chechnya, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka.

Last week New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid died of an asthma attack while trying to reach an opposition zone.

French television reporter Gilles Jacquier was killed in Homs last month as a shell exploded amid a group of journalists covering protests in the city on a visit organised by the Syrian authorities.

Violence meanwhile continues to spread across Syria. Several YouTube videos taken by local activists in Idlib, which could not be independently confirmed, showed bodies of young men with bullet wounds and hands tied lying dead in streets.

The men, all civilians, were mostly shot in the head or chest on Tuesday in their homes or in streets in the villages of Idita, Iblin and Balshon in Idlib province near the border with Turkey, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said.

"Military forces chased civilians in these villages, arrested them and killed them without hesitation. They concentrated on male youths and whoever did not manage to escape was to be killed," the organisation said in a statement.

"Responsibility for this massacre lies with the general commander of the military and armed forces, Bashar al-Assad," the statement said, adding that only one youth survived the shootings.

One video shows the body of three youths, one visibly shot in the chest, on the floor of a house in Balshon.

"This is martyr Hassan Abdel Qadi al-Saeed, his brother Hussein and (their relative) Bashir Mohammad al-Saeed. They were liquidated by Assad's forces in the Feb. 21 massacre," a voice of a man showing the bodies says, with the sound of women wailing in the background.

The developments come as the United States appeared to ease their stance on eventually arming the Syrian opposition, saying if a political solution to the crisis were impossible it might have to consider other options.

The comments, made by officials at both the White House and the State Department, marked a shift in emphasis by Washington, which thus far has stressed its policy of not arming the opposition and has said little about alternatives.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with representatives of some 70 countries in Tunis on Friday for the first "Friends of Syria" meeting to coordinate the international community's next steps to respond the nearly year-long uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"We still believe that a political solution is what's needed in Syria," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

"We don't want to take actions that would contribute to the further militarisation of Syria, because that could take the country down a dangerous path. But we don't rule out additional measures."

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, asked if the United States was shifting its stance on arming the rebels, said Washington did not want to see the violence increase and was concentrating on political efforts to halt the bloodshed.

"That said ... if we can't get Assad to yield to the pressure that we are all bringing to bear, we may have to consider additional measures."

She declined to elaborate on what those measures might be.

The United States and its allies hope this week's Tunis meeting will allow them to begin drawing up a plan for Syria after Russia and China vetoed a Western-backed Arab League peace plan at the UN Security Council.

US officials suggest the meeting will focus on ways to increase economic pressure on Assad through additional sanctions and to ramp up humanitarian relief for victims of the repression.

But Arab diplomats have suggested that formal or informal moves to arm the rebels may also be discussed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ ... killed-in-Homs.html