AMMAN: Syrian troops and militia loyal to President Bashar al-Assad captured and then shot dead 27 young men in northern villages and two foreign journalsts were killed in shelling of the besieged city of Homs, activists said on Wednesday.
The two Western journalists were killed on Wednesday when shells hit the house they were staying in, activists and witnesses said. They were named as Marie Colvin, an American working for Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, and French photgrapher Remi Ochlik.
A witness told Reuters by phone that shells hit the house where the journalists were staying and a rocket hit them as they were escaping.
Violence continued to spread. 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.One video shows the body of three youths, one visibly shot in the chest, on the floor of a house in Balshon. (UNI)