Antakya Syrian soldiers shot dead a cameraman working for Lebanon's Al Jadeed television channel yesterday near the border between the two countries, the television channel said.
It said cameraman Ali Sha'aban was on the Lebanese side of the frontier, in the northern Lebanese region of Wadi Khalid, when soldiers opened fire on a car carrying the Al Jadeed crew.
Sha'aban's colleague Hussain Khreiss said the shooting occurred even though the crew had explained to the soldiers what they were doing.
"We told our Syrian brothers ... that we are not military ... but they opened fire heavily on the car," the channel's website quoted him as saying.
Last month Lebanese residents said Syrian soldiers crossed into Lebanon's Bekaa valley in pursuit of Syrian rebels, and there have been several reports of cross-border shooting or shelling which have wounded people inside Lebanon.
Clashes between Syrian soldiers and rebel fighters along the Syrian border with Turkey wounded at least five people yesterday, including two Turkish officials, when stray bullets hit a refugee camp in Turkey, officials said.
The gun battles occurred just inside Syria near the Kilis refugee camp in Turkey's Kilis province located right along the Turkey-Syria border.
"The injuries are a result of clashes between Syrian soldiers and rebels. The bullets reached the camp," Yousuf Odabas, the governor of the province, told Turkey's state TRT broadcaster.
Three Syrians were seriously wounded, and a Turkish police officer and a translator were wounded, but not seriously, he said.
"These injuries occurred during clashes with the opposition forces. They were wounded by bullets hitting the container camp," he said.
A Turkish foreign ministry official said the Syrian charge d'affaires in Ankara was summoned to the ministry following the incident.
Violence: EU for sanctions
The European Union will consider further sanctions against Syria, if Kofi Annan's plan does not work and Damascus fails to honour the UN ceasefire deadline, said Maurizio Massari, Special Envoy of the Italian Foreign Minister for the Mediterranean and Middle East, in Abu Dhabi Monday.
Annan's plan, including immediate halt to the violence, access to humanitarian relief and political dialogue, should be honoured without preconditions on part of the Syrian regime. And if Damascus fails to meet the deadline, the EU will consider further sanctions to pressure the Syrian regime into a political solution," Massari said.
— By Samir Salama, Associate Editor
