Syrian border violence kills Al Jadeed journalist Ali Shaaban in Lebanon, wounds refugees in Turkey

A sister, right, and an unidentified relative of Ali Shaaban, a television cameraman working for the Al Jadeed television station who was shot dead on the Lebanon-Syria border, mourn at their home in Beirut April 9, 2012. / AP Photo

Updated at 3:59 p.m. ET

(CBS/AP) KILIS, Turkey - The bloody conflict in Syria spilled across two tense borders Monday when gunfire from government forces killed a cameraman in Lebanon and wounded at least six people in a refugee camp in Turkey, authorities said.

The violence came as a U.N.-brokered truce plan set to take effect on Tuesday all but collapsed, bolstering fears that the uprising could spark a broader conflagration by sucking in neighboring countries.

International envoy Kofi Annan brokered a cease-fire, but the plan is in tatters. Syrian troops were meant to pull out of population centers by Tuesday morning, but President Bashar Assad's government on Sunday introduced a new, last-minute demand — saying forces cannot withdraw without written guarantees from opposition fighters that they will lay down their arms.

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Syria's main rebel group, the Free Syrian Army, rejected the government's demand for a written guarantee, but says it will abide by its promise under Annan's plan to stop fighting — as long as the regime does too.

"We as protectors of the Syrian people announce a cease-fire against the regime's army starting on the morning of April 10 and we will stick to this promise if the regime abides by the clauses of the initiative," a member of the FSA's military council said in a YouTube video.

The Syrian opposition and Western leaders had been skeptical all along that Assad would live up to his commitment to a truce because he broke similar promises in the past and escalated attacks on opposition strongholds in the days leading up to the cease-fire deadline.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the United States "strongly" condemned the attacks, CBS Radio News correspondent Cami McCormick reports.

"These incidents are just another indication that the Assad regime does not seem at all willing to meet the commitments that it made to Kofi Annan," Nuland said.

"Not only has the violence not abated, it has been worse in recent days," she said.

The U.S. wasn't optimistic that Assad would meet Tuesday's deadline, Nuland said, "but we're going to wait for tomorrow's deadline and take it from there."

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deplored Monday's shootings, his spokesperson said in a statement, CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk reports.

In the latest violence, Ali Shaaban, a cameraman for the Al Jadeed television station, was filming in Lebanon's northern Wadi Khaled area when a bullet pierced his chest, Lebanese security officials said. The gunfire came from the nearby Syrian village of Armouta, the officials said.

Shaaban, who was born in 1980, died on the way to the hospital, the officials said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

His colleague, reporter Hussein Khreis, said the team heard heavy gunfire around them from all sides "falling like rain." Shaaban was inside a car when he was struck, Khreis said.

"If you see the car, you would think it was in a war zone," Khreis said on Al Jadeed TV. "It is completely destroyed from the bullets."

He said they waited for more than two hours for the Lebanese army and some residents to come and pull them out to safety.

"I ask forgiveness from Ali's family because I couldn't do anything for him," he said, breaking into tears.

Al Jadeed said that Syrian security officials dressed in civilian clothes fired more than 40 bullets at their staff, who were on Lebanese soil. Al Jadeed said on its Arabic Twitter account that the Lebanese military retrieved Shaaban's body from near the border.

The post on Twitter quoted a staff member as saying they had received threats from members of the Syrian army who were armed and dressed in civilian clothes.

Earlier in the day, Syrian forces fired across the border into a refugee camp in Turkey, wounding at least five people, authorities said. The soldiers were apparently firing at rebels who tried to escape to the refugee camp after ambushing a military checkpoint, according to the Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which cited a network of sources on the ground.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry said two Syrian citizens and two Turkish officials were wounded when the camp came under fire from the Syrian side. Local authorities, however, put the number of wounded at four Syrians and two Turks. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.

"Syrian citizens who have fled the violence by the current Syrian regime are under the full protection of Turkey," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It said 21 wounded Syrians were also brought to Turkey on Monday but that two of them died soon after.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the fighting along the Turkish border began before dawn Monday when rebel fighters attacked Syrian soldiers manning a checkpoint near the Turkish border, killing six soldiers.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, a spokesman for the Observatory, said the troops then kept firing as they pursued eight wounded rebels who escaped to the camp just across the border in Turkey, sending bullets whizzing across the frontier.

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[verrz]

The outlines of a much broader conflict are beginning to emerge here. Consider how Assad is Russia's ally. (there are already some Russian military personel in Syria) Assad in turn, as head of the ruling Alawites, is allied with Shiite Iran.

Next, consider the Western coalition opposing Assad. Here we have U.S. and NATO backed rebels. These rebels are also supported by Sunni Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that fear and oppose growing Iranian influence in the region.

In this context then, Mitt Romney's recent remark that Russia is America's main enemy was not some reversion to Cold War thinking. Rather, Romney is anticipating a confrontation with Russia in this new situation.

Folks, he has inadvertantly tipped his hat. In his mind he is war gaming a conflict he is convincied America is going to have to fight: America, Israel, and Sunni Gulf states against an Iranian/Syrian/Russian alliance. Bottom line: a vote for Romney is a vote for WW3.

[buccos]

Now it is all Romneys fault instead of Bush. It will never be the fault of Obama.

[usunus]

Turkey hosts the leaders of the Syrian rebels.It is the headquarters of the the so-called Free Syrian Army,a bunch of defectors from the Syrian army.Turkey has also been aiding and encouraging the rebels fighting in Syria.Yet it is supposed to be utterly shocking news that Syrian forces fired on rebels,who attacked a checkpoint in Syria and escaped into a regugee camp in Tukey !This is truly a media war !

[askagain]

Further, it is ok to kill six Syrian soldiers in an attack but it isn't ok for the Syrian army to go after the rebel killers. Are these the new rules when two sides are at war?

[euge005]

The Turks will not let this pass lightly. The butchers from this dictator's goon squads fired on and wounded people in their country. They are as bad as the Israelis. Best we give the land back to the Turks and let them restore social justice in a secular, democratic union.

[shnovitz]

Where is the comment I left about 10 minutes ago, in response to the retired professor's letter?

[shnovitz]

I have just left a comment! Where is it?

[shnovitz]

I don't understand much of what Nikos Retsos, retired professor, has written. I am just an ordinary person who, while not a fan of Bashar el Assad, sees the so-called rebels (I don't know what else to call them) as possibly Sunni Muslims strongly backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, very keen to gain a foothold in Syria, and ultimately to control it completely. This is precisely what the Egyptian "Spring" has produced. A similar thing has happened in Libya which is now controlled by armed (by the West) thugs who are also Sunni and wish to have Sharia law imposed on the populace. So there we have Egypt, Libya and Syria. The Arab "Spring" has been a sad farce. What was said by those countries to be a move towards democracy has actually been a move to ever more fundamentalist Islam of Sunnis and Salafis - all of which will ultimately make the world an even unhappier place than it is now. We in the West have been gullible fools. In fact, it is scarcely believable that Western governments fell for all the overblown "democracy" hype. The three countries I've mentioned have always despised democracy, regarded it with the utmost scorn - why on earth should we have believed that they were suddenly changing their views? From the beginning it made no sense. And yet our ridiculous governments believed it, while ordinary citizens like myself simply regarded it with incredulity.

[usunus]

The Arab Spring is mostly a myth created by the Western media and the Western governments thought they could manipulate it to re-order the Arab world according to their own priorities.But the Islamists had the last laugh.

[Nikos_Retsos]

"The U.N.-brokered cease-fire deal" was a U.S. pushed Saudi contraption to save the Syrian rebels that are on the run, and give time to the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to bolster them with new weapons and funds. Assad is not stupid to give the rebels "breathing space" now that he has them on the run.

The Syrian Spring is toast. From the moment the U.S. and the Saudis decided to fund, train and arm them, and install them as an anti-Iranian regime in Damascus, they were no longer a Syrian Spring. They became just another band of Syrian puppets, armed, funded, and controlled by foreign powers, like the Cuban Exiles in the Bay of Pigs; the Nicaraguan "contras," and the Karen rebels in Burma. The Syrian rebellion is not about Syria anymore; it is about Iran isolation!

Turkey's prime minister Tayyip Erdogan had a valiant plan to replace Assad with a popularly elected president, but it was scuttled by the U.S. and the Saudis. (More details in my blog at "my.telegraph.co.uk/retsos_nikos" titled: "U.S., Saudi hijacking of Syrian Spring a "Death Sentence!")

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia plan to turn the Syrian Spring into an anti-Iranian campaign was a lifesaver for the embattled Bashar Assad! It was just a foolish U.S. and Saudi idea to "Kill two birds with one shot: Bust Assad, and Isolate Iran!" Assad now looks like a nationalist trying to prevent outsiders from installing a puppet regime in his country in order to settle scores with Iran! Nikos Retsos, retired professor

[euge005]

Nice try to justify the butcher in Syria. It does not wash. The US has not started to train or arm the freedom fighters, but should. The Saudis make heap big noise but have done next to zero to actuall help free the Syrian people. And why should they when their own people need a good revolution too? Only the crazies in Iran are sending much to Syria, except maybe the Russians and that aid is going to support the dictatior.

[verrz]

On the contrary 005, this is a fairly good run down of the big picture.