A citizen journalist in the embattled city of Homs has described the moment that the sky rained with shells and destroyed a makeshift media centre, killing two journalists and at least three activists.
Marie Colvin, a veteran correspondent for the Sunday Times, and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed after a makeshift media centre in Hom was destroyed by government shells.
Among the wounded was Colvin's photographer, Paul Conroy.
Abo Bakr, who was an engineer before the uprising began in March 2011 but now acts as an activist and journalist in Homs, told the Huffington Post UK that he was asleep before the attack began.
"I was asleep with six journalists and my activist friends," he said. Then he began to hear the sound of explosions.
At first the blasts were in the distance. Then they were right on top of them.
"Suddenly at 8.30am the explosions came to us."
Bakr said the mortar shells fell directly onto the roof.
"More than 20 missiles dropped down," he said. "Which led to Kill Remi Ochlik and Marie Colvin, and Edith Bofee and another journalist was wounded."
After the attack Bakr immediately set to work, he said and transported the wounded to the hospital field.
"I left the house after it got struck and headed to a house across the street," he told Avaaz earlier. "The shelling continues and the bodies of the journalists are still on the ground. We can't get them out because of the intensity of the shelling even though we're only a few metres away from them."
Avaaz said the journalists were targeted by the Syrian regime on purpose.
"They were directly targeted," Avaaz said. "When shelling started abruptly this morning, without warning, it was in contravention of all humanitarian law."
But Al Jazeera quoted Information Minister Adnan Mahmoud as telling AFP that he didn't even know the journalists were in Syria.
Mahmoud rejected earlier claims by the protest network Avaaz that government forces deliberately targeted the building.
Activists say hundreds of civilians have died in Homs, and that close to 9,000 Syrians have been killed since the start of anti-government protests in March 2011.
President Assad claims the violence is the fault of armed terrorist groups, and has resisted calls to end the violence from the United Nations, the Arab League, the European Union and the United States.