Times reporter shot and photographer beaten in Syria

A Times reporter has been shot and a photographer badly beaten in Syria after they were double-crossed by the people charged with providing them safe passage across the border, the newspaper has reported.

Anthony Loyd was shot twice in the leg, while photographer Jack Hill was assaulted after he tried to escape from their captors in Tall Rifat, near the Turkish border.

They had been attempting to return to Turkey with a local fixer and bodyguards after a three-day assignment in the ruined city of Aleppo when their car was forced off the road, the newspaper said.

The paper said they identified their captors as men charged with providing them with safe passage to the border.

After the fixer and Mr Hill tried to escape, Mr Loyd was shot to prevent him trying to do the same.

The paper said that they were released after the Islamic Front, an anti-extremist rebel group, confronted the gang. After Mr Loyd was treated in a local hospital, the pair and their fixer made it across the border to Turkey.