LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - U.S. State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland described the incident as "another example of the shameless brutality of the Assad regime." Nine other people were reportedly killed in the incident, and Sunday Times photographer Paul Conroy was said to be seriously injured.

"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," Sunday Times editor John Witherow said in a statement.

"She believed profoundly that reporting could curtail the excesses of brutal regimes and make the international community take notice."

The newspaper says it is doing whatever it can to get Conroy to safety and to recover Colvin's body.

"We can't even enter the area or the building where the media office is," Abu Jafar, an activist in the city, told Al Jazeera. "There's still heavy bombardment."

In response, France demanded access to the victims of the attack and summoned Syria's envoy to Paris.

"I am asking the Syrian government to immediately stop attacks and respect its humanitarian obligations," Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said.

"I have asked our embassy in Damascus to require the Syrian authorities provide secure medical access to assist the victims with the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross," he said in a statement.

Government forces bombarded the Bab Amr neighborhood for the 20th straight day, according to local activists. There are is a growing fear of a humanitarian crisis in the area.

Colvin was an experienced foreign correspondent and was named Foreign Reporter of the Year by the British Press Awards in 2001. She had lost an eye to a grenade while working in Sri Lanka.

Ochlik had photographed the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions as well as the war in Libya. His work was published in Le Monde Magazine, Time magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

The opposition Syrian National Council said it was coming to the view that military intervention was the only solution to the nearly year-old crisis in the country.

"We are really close to seeing this military intervention as the only solution. There are two evils, military intervention or protracted civil war," Spokeswoman Basma Kodmani told a news conference in Paris.

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