Two Western Journalists Killed In Syria's Homs

HOMS, Syria - Two Western journalists were killed Wednesday in the flashpoint city of Homs after Syrian security forces shelled the building where they were staying.

UK foreign secretary William Hague confirmed that the journalists were Marie Colvin, a veteran American-born war correspondent for The (London) Sunday Times, and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

"Saddened by terrible news about Marie Colvin. She died helping people of Syria share their plight with the world. A great loss for us all," Hague said on Twitter.

"Marie Colvin's tragic death is a terrible reminder of the risks that journalists take to report the truth," he added.

French foreign minister Alain Juppe earlier confirmed that one of the journalists was the Frenchman. "I want to of course express my condolences to the families, notably to that of the French journalist but we will try and find out exactly the circumstances of these deaths," Juppe told reporters. "It is an additional demonstration of the deterioration in Syria."

News International, which publishes The Times and The Sunday Times, was working to confirm reports of Colvin's death. News International is part of News Corp., which also owns NewsCore.

The reporters were killed when the building housing foreign and Syrian opposition journalists in Baba Amr district was hit, activists said. Several other foreign journalists were injured.

At least 13 Syrian civilians were also killed in the shelling, activists said, including a citizen cameraman whose videos of the assault were broadcast online.

Colvin, who was in her 50s, lost an eye in a grenade attack during an assignment in Sri Lanka in 2001 and wore a black eye patch in public. She spoke to UK news programs and CNN about the desperate plight of Homs on Tuesday.

Ochlik, 28, had covered the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and had his work published in Le Monde, Paris Match,Time Magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

In Colvin's final dispatch for the newspaper, published Sunday, she described how the streets of Baba Amr were deserted with regime snipers shooting at any civilians that came into sight.

"Almost every building is pock-marked after tank rounds punched through concrete walls or rockets blasted gaping holes in upper floors," she wrote. "The building I was staying in lost its upper floor to a rocket last Wednesday. On some streets whole buildings have collapsed -- all there is to see are shredded clothes, broken pots and the shattered furniture of families destroyed."

French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier was killed last month and a number of other reporters were injured when a shell exploded in Homs during a visit organized by the regime.

Since then, the situation has deteriorated in the city, and President Bashar al Assad's forces have bombarded it for approaching three weeks. Hundreds of citizens have been killed in the assault, which has drawn widespread international condemnation.

The New York Times' two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony Shadid died last week of an apparent asthma attack while covering a story in eastern Syria.

More than 7,000 people have been killed since protests against Assad's rule flared in March last year.