Syrian soldiers have killed three Westerners, including an American woman and a British man, both Muslims, in northwest Idlib province near the Turkish border, a monitoring group says.
The American woman has been identified as 33-year-old Nicole Lynn Mansfield of Flint, Michigan.
"They were shot dead during an ambush in the Idlib region and the army found them with maps of military positions," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, late on Thursday.
The three had apparently been taking photos of military positions on the road between Harim, near the border with Turkey, and the town of Idlib further south when government troops ambushed them, he added.
The incident happened on Wednesday. The nationality of the third Westerner was not clear, said Rahman.
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Mansfield's aunt, Monica Mansfield Speelman, told the Detroit Free Press newspaper that her niece was a convert to Islam who married an Arab immigrant several years ago but later divorced him.
Syrian news reports say that Mansfield and the two killed with her were fighters for the opposition to Syria's government, the AP reports.
