The raging battle in Syria claimed the lives of two international journalists covering the siege on Wednesday being staged by Syrian security forces on the city of Homs, where hundreds of civilians have reportedly been killed so far more than two weeks of military assault.

According to American network ABC, the French Foreign Ministry confirmed the death of veteran American war correspondent Marie Colvin and a freelance French photographer Remi Ochlik.

Colvin was in Syria reporting for the UK-based Sunday Times and Yahoo News reported on Thursday that several hours before she was killed, Colvin appeared on a CNN show hosted by Anderson Cooper.

"There's been constant shelling in the city ... and every civilian house on this street has been hit," Yahoo News quoted Colvin as saying during her talk with Cooper.

"It's a complete and utter lie they're only going after terrorists. The Syrian Army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians," Colvin added in her report.

Colvin also sounded off to the CNN anchor on how a government attack killed a young baby boy, an event that she stressed she personally witnessed, apparently clueless that she would be the next victim of such assaults.

Media reports indicated that the two foreign journalists were killed while staying in a makeshift media centre, where some international media personnel gathered to cover the Syrian government's campaign of clearing what it claims as terrorist groups in Homs.

Most of these journalists, media reports said, slipped into the country illegally as Syrian President Basher al-Assad had prevented the international media from entering the Middle East nation, which has been fighting an almost year-long revolution.

One of them was Colvin, and the world had its last glimpse of her through a You Tube video, which shower her lifeless body and that of Ochlik's with the blown-out remains of what was a house in Homs.

Another French journalist, Jean-Pierre Perrin, told The Daily Telegraph in London that they warned that Syrian government forces were ordered to fire on reporters who will remain in the besieged city.

Perrin said that many of them decided to flee but Colvin stubbornly stayed behind.

In a statement, Sunday Times editor John Witherow said that Colvin "believed profoundly that reporting could curtail the excesses of brutal regimes and make the international community take notice."

Witherow also confirmed that Colvin's photographer, Paul Conroy, was also injured in the same attack though his wounds were not life-threatening.

The Times reported too that at least 10 Syrian civilians were killed with Colvin and Ochlik.

Colvin had previously been wounded covering international conflicts, losing her left eye in Sri Lanka in 2001, a sacrifice that she described as a worthy one in the name of delivering the truth.