Al-Assam, a 21-year-old cameraman and citizen journalist,
and filmmaker Bassel al-Shahade, were filming incursions by security forces in
the Homs neighborhood of Safsafa when a shell hit their car and killed
them, Amer Matar, an exiled Syrian journalist and a close friend of al-Shahade,
told CPJ. News reports suggested that security forces targeted the journalists
because they were filming.
Al-Assam had produced a number of reports on the conflict in
Homs, including one on the mass emigration of people from the war-torn city
that was widely used by regional news outlets.