The men, all civilians, were mostly shot in the head or chest on Tuesday in their homes or in streets in the villages of Idita, Iblin and Balshon in Idlib province near the border with Turkey, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said.

“Military forces chased civilians in these villages, arrested them and killed them without hesitation. They concentrated on male youths and whoever did not manage to escape was to be killed,” the organization said in a statement.

“Responsibility for this massacre lies with the general commander of the military and armed forces, Bashar Assad,” the statement said, adding that only one youth survived the shootings.

Several YouTube videos taken by local activists in Idlib, which could not be independently confirmed, showed bodies of young men with bullet wounds lying in streets and in houses.

One video shows the body of three youths, one visibly shot in the chest, on the floor of a house in Balshon.

“This is martyr Hassan Abdel Qadi Al-Saeed, his brother Hussein and (their relative) Bashir Mohammad Al-Saeed. They were liquidated by Assad’s forces in the Feb. 21 massacre,” a voice of a man showing the bodies says, with the sound of women wailing in the background.
 

Meanwhile, two Western journalists were killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday when shells hit the house they were staying in, opposition activists and witnesses said.

They were named as Marie Colvin, an American working for Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, and French photgrapher Remi Ochlik.

A witness told Reuters by phone that shells hit the house where the journalists were staying and a rocket hit them as they were escaping.

Both were veteran reporters of wars in the Middle East and elsewhere.