Syrian troops and militia loyal to President Bashar al-Assad captured and then shot dead 27 young men in northern villages and two foreign journalists were killed in shelling of the besieged city of Homs, activists said today.
The two Western journalists were killed 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 photographer Remi Ochlik.
A witness said shells hit the house where the journalists were staying and a rocket hit them as they were escaping.
Ms Colvin was a fearless reporter who lost an eye when she suffered a shrapnel wound while working in Sri Lanka in 2001. In public appearances after that attack, she wore a black eye patch.
Activists in Homs say at least two other foreign journalists were wounded. One was named as British photographer Paul Conroy. Another, a female American journalist, is in a very serious condition after the house was hit by more than 10 rockets, they said.
The Syrian conflict is especially dangerous for journalists to cover as opposition and rebel forces are for the most part bottled up in enclaves. Last week New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid died of an asthma attack while trying to reach an opposition zone.
France called on the Syrian government to immediately halt attacks on Homs and allow safe access to provide medical support to victims in the city.
"I ask the Syrian government to stop immediately the attacks and respect its humanitarian obligations," foreign minister Alain Juppe said in a statement. "I have asked our embassy in Damascus to demand from Syrian authorities a securitised passage with medical help to be given to victims with the support of the International Red Cross.
Mr Juppe added that he had summoned Syria's ambassador to condemn the unacceptable behaviour of the Syrian government. "France is more determined than ever to end the savage repression that the Syrian people are experiencing every day," he said.
Meanwhile, 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 yesterday 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 February 21st massacre," a voice of a man showing the bodies says, with the sound of women wailing in the background.
The raids came as the United States appeared to open the door to eventually arming the Syrian opposition, saying that if a political solution to the crisis was impossible it might have to consider other options.
The comments, made by officials at both the White House and the US State Department yesterday, marked a shift in emphasis by Washington, which so far has stressed a policy of not arming the opposition and has said little about alternatives.
"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."
Asked if the United States was shifting its stance on arming the rebels, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland 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 said, declining to elaborate.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton will meet representatives of some 70 countries and organisations in Tunis on Friday for the first "Friends of Syria" meeting to co-ordinate the international community's next steps in response to the nearly year-long uprising against Dr Assad.
The United States and its allies hope the conference 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 United Nations.
Reuters