Smoke covers Aleppo city streets as a government siege rages.<br/> <br />Japanese journalist Mika Yamamoto died there Tuesday from wounds sustained in a gunfight between Syrian forces and rebels, becoming the first Japanese national killed in the 17-month-old conflict.<br/> <br />The award-winning journalist worked for Tokyo-based independent news wire Japan Press and was travelling with the Free Syrian Army.<br/> <br />Colleague Kazutaka Sato, who was travelling with her, said Yamamoto was his wife and they had been together for fifteen years.<br/> <br />He explained that he could do nothing to help her, as he showed her bullet-scarred flak jacket.<br/> <br />Yamamoto's death underscores the hostile environment in which journalists operate to cover the Syrian conflict, in which 18,000 people have been killed.
