NEW YORK, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- Anthony Shadid, a New York Times correspondent whose coverage of Iraq won two Pulitzers, died of an apparent asthma attack in Syria, the Times said. He was 43.
Shadid died Thursday while on assignment with Times photographer Tyler Hicks, who carried his body across the border to Turkey. Shadid had been inside Syria for a week reporting on the uprising against President Bashar Assad, whose regime has responded to nearly a year of protests with deadly force.
Shadid won Pulitzer Prizes in 2004 and 2010, both while at The Washington Post, for his coverage of Iraq.
Assad's government, which has imposed tight controls on journalists in the country, had not been informed of Shadid's assignment by the Times, the newspaper said.
Precisely where Shadid died and under what circumstances remained unclear.
Hicks said Shadid had asthma and carried medication and that symptoms began appearing as the two prepared to leave Syria Thursday. The symptoms worsened, escalating into a fatal attack.
Jill Abramson, the Times' executive editor, informed the newspaper's staff of Shadid's death in an e-mail Thursday evening.
"Anthony died as he lived -- determined to bear witness to the transformation sweeping the Middle East and to testify to the suffering of people caught between government oppression and opposition forces," she wrote.
In two decades of coverage of the Middle East, Shadid also worked for the Post, The Boston Globe and The Associated Press.
