ERBIL, Feb. 23 (AKnews) - Marie Colvin, 56, the acclaimed war correspondent has who worked in the Middle East and across the world for more than a quarter-century, has been killed after a targeted attack in Syria.
On Wednesday morning, Colvin died after a safe-house for journalists in the Baba Amru district in the rebel city of Homs was attacked by shelling and rocket-fire.
Witnesses claim that
Colvin escaped from the safe-house - also a make-shift press center
filled with foreign and Syrian opposition journalists - but was then
killed by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Reports from those who survived the attack point the finger at forces
loyal to the Assad regime. They said phone lines had been cut and
locations where mobile phone signals could be detected, such as the
safe-house, were targeted by shelling.
Syrian forces had earlier
pledged to kill any journalist on Syrian soil. While Lebanese intelligence
reports revealed that Syrian army officers had been given direct orders
to target the safe house.
The American-born foreign correspondent has worked for the Sunday Times, based in London, since 1985. She has spent considerable time reporting on the frontlines of Iraq, and has also written about the plight of the Kurdish people.
During the Iran-Iraq war she took on a disguise and smuggled herself into Basra, despite being completely closed off to the rest of the world.
Reporting from some of the most violent places in the world - including Libya, Chechnya and Palestine - she not only interviewed high profile leaders such as Mummar Gaddafi but focused much of her reports on ordinary citizens caught in the cross-fire.
She began wearing her trademark black eye-patch in 2001 after losing her left eye in a grenade attack in Sri Lanka. However, she still filed her report before her deadline.
Colvin's final report to the Sunday Times on the Siege of Homs has been specially moved beyond the News International paywall, and can be read here.
By Shyamalie Satkunanandan
AKnews