Cameraman killed during fighting in northwest Syria

A Syrian cameraman working for pro-regime TV network Sama was killed while covering clashes on the edge of the northwestern province of Idlib on Friday, state news agency SANA reported.

"The terrorists targeted a press team from the Sama satellite channel near the village of Umm Haratain," south of the city of Idlib, the agency reported.

The channel's Facebook page confirmed Karam Qabisho had died, but it gave no further details on the circumstances of his death.

Violence surged in the area this week as regime forces backed by Russian warplanes took on rebels and jihadists on the edge of Idlib province, the only region still out of regime control.

Regime and allied forces there are battling rebels dominated by Fateh al-Sham, a former al-Qaeda affiliate.

According to the Syria Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring organisation, at least 68 people have been killed since Thursday in the fighting.

Among them were at least 21 civilians.

In October, a journalist working for a pro-opposition television network was killed by shelling in Damascus province and another employed by state TV died when a landmine exploded in Homs province.

In March, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said that 211 journalists and citizen journalists had been killed in six years of war in Syria, the world's most dangerous country for journalists in recent years.

The Syrian conflict began when the Baath regime, in power since 1963 and led by President Bashar al-Assad, responded with military force to peaceful protests demanding democratic reforms during the Arab Spring wave of uprisings, triggering an armed rebellion fuelled by mass defections from the Syrian army.

According to independent monitors, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed in the war, mostly by the regime and its powerful allies, and millions have been displaced both inside and outside of Syria.