Syrian female TV correspondent Yara Abbas killed in Homs

Country's information ministry says reporter was covering clashes near the Lebanese border

Syrian rebels have killed a TV correspondent who was covering clashes near the border with Lebanon, according to the Syrian information ministry.

Officials said Yara Abbas, a prominent female war reporter for state-owned Al-Ikhbariyah TV, was attacked near the military air base of Dabaa in the central province of Homs.

Dabaa air base is near the town of Qusair, which has been under attack by government forces and members of Lebanon's Hezbollah group since last week. Dozens of rebels, troops and gunmen have been killed in the heavy fighting.

Several journalists covering both sides of Syria's conflict have been killed since the crisis began in March 2011.

Syria's civil war, now in its third year, is thought to have killed more than 70,000 and displaced more than one million. It is fought between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebels, mostly from the disparate Free Syrian Army.

The conflict has spilled periodically across the ceasefire line and Syria's borders with Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey, threatening to engulf the region.