Clinton blasts Assad speech as ‘chilling and clinical’

President Bashar al-Assad vowed yesterday to defeat a “conspiracy” against Syria, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton branded a rare speech he delivered the day before as “chillingly clinical.”

And the Assad regime’s deadly 10-month crackdown on dissent showed no signs of abating, with a rocket attack killing at least seven people in the flashpoint city of Homs, including a French reporter and six Syrians.

France demanded an investigation into death of the journalist, identified by his employer France 2 television as 43-year-old Gilles Jacquier, while the US accused Syria of failing to provide an environment hospitable to the media.

MJacquier is the first Western reporter to die in Syria since the anti-regime protests erupted in March. An AFP reporter at the scene in Homs said he died when a shell exploded amid a group of journalists.