Red Crescent official shot dead in Syria

The secretary-general of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent was shot dead on Wednesday as he travelled outside the capital Damascus in a clearly marked vehicle, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

Doctor Abd-al-Razzaq Jbeiro, also head of the Red Crescent branch in the northern town of Idlib, was on the highway to Idlib from Damascus after attending meetings at Red Crescent headquarters, the agency said in a statement.

"Regardless of the circumstances, the ICRC condemns this very severely," Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, head of ICRC operations for the Near and Middle East, said in Geneva.

She added that the "lack of respect for medical services" remained a major issue in Syria.

Syrian state television blamed "terrorists" for the killing, saying he had been "assassinated" in Khan Sheikhoun district.

"The president of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Dr. AbdulRahman al-Attar, said that he has "officially requested the Syrian authorities to launch an investigation into the death of Dr. Jbeiro," the ICRC said in a statement.

Jbeiro, born in 1945, had also previously worked as director of Idlib hospital.

The ICRC is the only international agency deploying aid workers in Syria. A local Red Crescent volunteer was killed and three others were injured in the flashpoint city of Homs last September when an ambulance came under heavy fire.

More than 5,000 people have been killed in a 10-month-old uprising against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, the United Nations said last month.