Syria has accepted a UN-sponsored peace plan, international envoy Kofi Annan said, even as troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad raided rebel forces who have taken refuge in Lebanon.

The bodies of Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, killed in shelling while trapped in Syria, left the country on board a French plane to Paris.

Arrangements are being made for the repatriation of a newspaper journalist killed in Syria after her body arrived in Damascus.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has said it has recovered the bodies of two foreign journalists killed in Syria.

The Arab League forged ahead with plans to send teams of monitors into Syria today even as President Bashar Assad’s regime intensified its crackdown in the week since agreeing to halt bloodshed.