The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have paid tribute to two Western journalists, including Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times, who have been killed in an attack in the Syrian city of Homs. 

The second was named as French photojournalist Remi Ochlik, who was also killed in an attack which is said to have targeted an opposition safehouse.

William Hague said: “Marie and Remi died bringing us the truth about what is happening to the people of Homs.

“Governments around the world have the responsibility to act upon that truth – and to redouble our efforts to stop the Assad regime’s despicable campaign of terror in Syria,” he said.

Ms Colvin had been a war reporter for the Sunday Times for 20 years, and during a career that took her to some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones, lost an eye to a shrapnel wound in Sri Lanka in 2001.

In a statement, the editor of the Sunday Times John Witherow said: “Marie was an extraordinary figure in the life of The Sunday Times, driven by a passion to cover wars in the belief that what she did mattered.

“She believed profoundly that reporting could curtail the excesses of brutal regimes and make the international community take notice. Above all, as we saw in her powerful report last weekend, her thoughts were with the victims of violence.

“Throughout her long career she took risks to fulfil this goal, including being badly injured in Sri Lanka. Nothing seemed to deter her. But she was much more than a war reporter.

“She was a woman with a tremendous joie de vivre, full of humour and mischief and surrounded by a large circle of friends, all of whom feared the consequences of her bravery.”

Mr Ochlik was a 28-year-old award-winning photojournalist, who had covered events in Haiti and Libya. He is the second French journalist to be killed in the unrest in the country, after cameraman Gilles Jacquier died in a mortar attack during an authorised press trip, also in Homs.  

Upon hearing news of his death, the French government called on Syria to make an immediate stop to the bombardments in Homs, and to allow safe passage for humanitarian aid to reach affected areas.

“France is more determined than ever to end the savage repression that the Syrian people are experiencing every day,” said the country’s foreign minister Alain Juppe, who summoned Syria’s envoy to France to demand an end to the violence. 

A British freelance photographer, Paul Conroy, was injured in the same attack, but initial reports suggest he is not seriously hurt.

Activists say a number of other local journalists and activists were killed and injured in the attack, taking the death toll today to over 13. 

They died in the Babr Amr district of Homs, the area made famous in recent weeks for bearing the brunt of a government assault on the city which has left hundreds dead.

The Syrian National Council attributed blame for the deaths to the Assad regime. “Homs is a very, very dangerous place,” Basma Qadmani, spokeswoman for the Syrian National Council, said.

“I see no reason why opposition members would shoot at journalists. It is, therefore, most probably related to the regime.”

The news comes as the SNC said it is coming to the view that military intervention would be the only way to break the on-going deadlock in Syria. 

Remi Ochlik had covered a number of Arab Spring revolts

Ms Qadmani said: “We are really close to seeing this military intervention as the only solution. There are two evils, military intervention or protracted civil war.”

The SNC argued for months that the Syrian people had to fight their battles on their own. But the scale of the violence and level of destruction that months of intense fighting have wrought pushed the Council to accept foreign intervention may be the only way forward.

The US made the strongest hint yet that it could arm the Free Syrian Army – following recent calls supporting the idea from Senator John McCain – and in a statement said: “from our perspective, we don’t believe that it makes sense to contribute now to the further militarisation of Syria. What we don’t want to see is the spiral of violence increase.

“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.” 

The SNC’s Ms Qadmani also said that Russia should use its privileged position as a closer ally to the Syrian regime than most, to lobby the government to allow humanitarian aid into the country. 

“In order to not militarise, the idea is to ask Russia to exert pressure on the regime not to target humanitarian corridors,” she said. Ms Qadmani added that the SNC planned to establish corridors from Lebanon into the besieged city of Homs, from Turkey into Idlib, and from Jordan into Der’aa.

The Turkey-based opposition group has said it will attend the Friends of Syria summit, which is to be held in Tunisia on Friday, in order to ask for these buffer zones to be set up.

Despite Russia’s refusal to attend the meeting, the country’s foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich expressed “serious concern” about the humanitarian situation, and backed calls for access for aid groups. 

It comes after human rights groups called for a ceasefire in order that humanitarian aid could be given to those caught in the violence. Activists said that residents were in need of food, medical care and other provisions.

The International Committee of the Red Cross started talks with opposition groups and the government but had so far failed to reach any agreements.

The UN estimates that over 6,000 have been killed since the beginning of protests against the rule of President Bashar al Assad.

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