More than 60 bodies, both rebel fighters and civilians, were recovered from Baba Amro, a Sunni Muslim district opposed to Syria's Alawite ruling class, after an afternoon bombardment on Wednesday. Some 21 were killed earlier in the day, activists said.
Several hundred people have been killed in the daily bombardments by the Assad's forces who are using artillery, rockets, sniper fire and Soviet-built T-72 tanks.
Among those killed overnight include foreign correspondent at the Sunday Times, Marie Colvin, as well as Syrian citizen journalist Rami al-Sayyed and French freelance photojournalist Remi Ochlik.
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy said the killing of the journalists showed that "this regime must go," while Britain's foreign ministry summoned the Syrian ambassador to lodge a protest over the deaths.
The London Times said Colvin's reporting and subsequent death had strengthened global opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's rule.
"Marie Colvin stood for truth and courage, which, when brought together, are the greatest moral force on the planet," said the paper's editorial.
From inside the besieged quarter, activist Omar Shaker told AFP that the two journalists were killed and three others wounded as a shell crashed into a makeshift media centre set up by anti-regime militants.
French newspaper Le Figaro said one of its reporters, Edith Bouvier, was wounded in the legs, and Rupert Murdoch, who owns The Sunday Times, said the paper's photojournalist Paul Conroy was injured.
Syrian citizen journalist Rami al-Sayyed, who provided live footage on the Internet from Baba Amr, was also killed late on Tuesday when a rocket hit a car in which he was travelling, activist Hadi Abdullah told AFP.
Underscoring the growing security problems unfolding in Syria, Iraqi forces said they had arrested the head of a Sunni insurgent group believed to be linked to Al-Qaeda, as he tried to cross into Iraqi territory from Syria.
The latest attacks in Homs came the day after security forces killed at least 68 across Syria, adding to an overall toll of 7,636 -- most of them civilians -- since anti-regime protests erupted last March, according to the Observatory.
Outside Homs, the Britain-based watchdog said two civilians were killed by Syrian troops on Wednesday in the city of Khan Shaykhun, in the northwestern province of Idlib.
It said seven others, including a five-year-old child and a woman, were killed by security forces in Idlib's Jebel al-Zawiya area.
In one of her last despatches, Colvin described the scene.
"It's absolutely sickening. Just today shelling started at 6.30 in the morning. I counted 14 shells just hitting this civilian area...within 30 seconds," she wrote.
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