January 21, 2013 -- Updated 1802 GMT (0202 HKT)
Two journalists covering the war in Syria, a French magazine reporter and a freelancer for Al Jazeera, were killed. FULL STORY
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January 19, 2013 -- Updated 0320 GMT (1120 HKT)
A Free Syrian Army fighter walks
between buildings damaged during Syrian Air Force strikes in Damascus on
Saturday, January 19. Click through to view images from the Syrian
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Showdown in Syria
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Al Jazeera reporter shot dead in Daraa province
- French president says France is mourning the death of Yves Debay in Aleppo
- Opposition says "Assad gangs" killed Debay while he was covering the war
- Several dozen professional and citizen journalists have died in Syria's civil war
A longtime globe-trotting
war reporter and "battlefield junkie" who once had been a mercenary
fighter in Africa has been killed in the conflict-ravaged city of
Aleppo, the French presidential palace confirmed Friday.
Yves Debay worked for Assaut ("Assault," in English), a French magazine based in the Paris area.
Al Jazeera Media Network announced that a sniper had killed Mohamed Al-Massalma, a freelance correspondent in Syria.
The 33-year-old Syrian
journalist, who used the pseudonym Mohamed Al-Hoorani, was struck by
three bullets while covering fighting at the front lines in the town of
Busra Al-Harir in the countryside of Daraa, the network said in a
statement.
"He was known for his courage and accuracy of the news he provided from Daraa and the surrounding areas," Al Jazeera said.
Daraa, near Jordan, is where the Syrian uprising unfolded in March 2011.
Aleppo, Syria's most
populous city located in the north, has been devastated by fighting
between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebel fighters.
France mourned Debay on Friday.
"The President of the
Republic, speaking on behalf of France, expresses his deep emotion at
the death of Yves Debay, French journalist killed in Aleppo, Syria while
he was reporting," the palace said.
"France condemns this
heinous act and expresses its condolences, sympathy and solidarity to
the family and friends of Yves Debay. France pays tribute to Yves Debay
and other journalists in Syria, who are paying with their lives for
their commitment to freedom of information."
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He is the latest
journalist to die in the Syrian warfare, a conflict that morphed into a
civil war after the government cracked down on peaceful protesters. More
than 60,000 people have died in the fighting, including several dozen
professional and citizen journalists.
LeMonde, the French
daily, called Debay a "battlefield junkie." Born in the Belgian Congo in
1954, Debay was originally Belgian but acquired French nationality in
1987, a Belgian official told CNN.
He was in the Belgian
army and had been a mercenary for the army of Rhodesia, the white-ruled
precursor to Zimbabwe, and fought Marxist guerrillas, the newspaper
said. He covered conflicts across the world, in Afghanistan, Lebanon,
Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and, most recently, Syria.
The paper said Debay thrived on the life of fighters.
"He adopted their
lifestyle, dressed like them, ate like them, shared the same risks, and
could not conceive of covering a war otherwise," the paper said.
CNN Correspondent Ben Wedeman knew him in Libya during the warfare there between rebels and the Gadhafi regime.
"My impression when with
him on the front lines in eastern Libya was that he understood warfare
far better than the young Libyan rebels, of whose skill he was
dismissive," Wedeman said. "He often laughed heartily at their tendency
to run at the first sign of danger."
A Syrian opposition group posted a video on its Facebook page saying Debay was killed by government troops.
Another activist reads a
brief statement, saying: "This is the body of the French journalist
Yves who was killed by Assad gangs while covering the war in Aleppo."
The LeMonde report said he was killed by a sniper Thursday.
As the war continued,
so, too, did defections. Turkey's state-run TRT news service reported
that 12 Syrian army officers defected Friday to Turkey. The five
colonels, one major, four captains and two lieutenants and their
relatives formed a group of 71 people who crossed into Hatay province
through Reyhanlı town, it said. They settled in a tent city in Apaydin,
the news service said.
Meanwhile, 27 Syrians
who were wounded in clashes, were taken to Turkey for treatment. They
were hospitalized in regional hospitals.
At least 183 people were
killed Friday in Syria, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of
Syria said. Of those, 48 deaths occurred in Aleppo, most in aerial
shelling on the Mohafaza neighborhood.
CNN's Hamdi Alkhshali, Tom Watkins and Journalist Saskya Vandoorne contributed to this report.
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