Al-Bushi, 24, a journalist with the rebel Free Syrian Army,
was killed
in government shelling of Al-Tal, according to news reports. News reports said
al-Bushi had left government military service in May 2012 to join the rebel
army. Those accounts described his role as that of a journalist documenting the
conflict from the perspective of the rebels and as a spokesman for the Free
Syrian Army.
Al-Bushi contributed extensive reporting and footage of the
Syrian conflict to numerous international outlets, including the pan-Arab news
channel Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera,
Sky News, and the United Arab Emirates-based Syrian, pro-opposition television
channel Orient News,
according to news reports.
Al-Bushi, originally from the central city of Hama,
graduated from Damascus University with a journalism degree and wrote for the
news website Syria News in 2009 before beginning mandatory
government military service in 2010, according to a friend, a Syrian citizen
journalist who uses the pseudonym Mattar Ismail.
In a convergence that illustrated the complex and often
murky relationship between local journalists and the opposing armed forces,
al-Bushi reported on the rebels’ seizure of a pro-government television crew.
In a report for Orient
News on August 10, al-Bushi said the Free Syrian Army had seized an
Al-Ikhbariya crew as it was filming in Al-Tal. CPJ research
determined that the rebels had seized reporter Yara al-Saleh, camera operator
Abdullah Tubara, camera operator Hatem Abu Yehia, and driver Hussam Imad.
In the video, al-Bushi said that one of the Al-Ikhbariya
journalists had been wounded by government shelling while in captivity. He said
the other captives were in good condition. CPJ research determined
that Abu Yehia later died from the wounds al-Bushi described. On August 16,
government forces freed
the other captured crew members.
CPJ could not determine whether al-Bushi was working
primarily as a journalist or as a fighter at the time of his death.