Kurdish opposition activists in Syria say one of their leaders, Mishaal Tammo, has been killed by masked gunmen who broke into his house in the north of the country. It's not known who was behind the attack. Jim Muir reports.
Mishaal Tammo was spokesman of a Kurdish group called the Future movement.
He
was tipped to be
included in the secretariat of the recently announced Syrian National Council. He's
being hailed as
a martyr by opposition factions.
Their assumption will be that he was killed by agents of the embattled regime in Damascus, but that's by no means a
foregone conclusion
. So far despite all the violence, targeted killings of specific opposition leadership figures have not been a feature of the regime's response to the uprising, though another activist Saifuddin Rahmi was reported to have been shot dead in cold blood on Thursday.
This year's Nobel Peace Prize has been jointly awarded to three women for their work in women's rights. One is a democracy activist from Yemen, Tawakul Karman; the other two come from Liberia, the president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and a peace campaigner, Leymah Gbowee. She said she hadn't carried out her work expecting such recognition.
"I am a symbol of hope in my community on the continent, in a place where there is little to be hopeful for. If you are a symbol of hope, you don't do it because you are expecting a reward; you do it because you are expected to do so, and people are relying and depending on you in your community."