BEIRUT, Lebanon — President Bashar al-Assad of Syria appeared in public on Wednesday for the first time since the uprising against his rule began 10 months ago, addressing a rally in Umayyad Square in Damascus. He thanked the crowd for its support and pledged to defeat what he said were conspiracies against his country.
In the turbulent city of Homs, a Western journalist was killed on Wednesday when another pro-government rally was attacked.
Mr. Assad’s speech, his second in two days, appeared intended to convey confidence and project authority, even as protests against him persist in some of the country’s largest cities. The crowd in Damascus cheered for Mr. Assad, with some people shouting, “Shabeeha forever, for your eyes, Assad,” a reference to loyalist militiamen who have played a major role in suppressing demonstrations and the activists who organize them.
“We will defeat the conspiracy, without any doubt,” the 46-year-old president told the crowd, which appeared to number in the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. “We will make this phase the last one of the conspiracy.”
The appearance came on an eventful day in Syria. France 2 Television said that one of its journalists, Gilles Jacquier, 43, was killed by an exploding shell in Homs. Syrian television and a human rights group based in London said that another Western journalist was wounded there, in what appeared to be an insurgent attack on a crowd of Assad supporters. And one of the 165 observers sent to Syria by the Arab League to check compliance with the government’s promise to end the violence resigned on Wednesday, calling the mission’s work a farce.
Mr. Assad appeared at the Damascus rally unexpectedly, wearing a jacket but no tie. His British-educated wife, Asma, and two of their children were also present; images broadcast on Addounia TV, a Syrian channel that is close to the government, showed Mrs. Assad in a black hat, with the children standing in front of her, smiling as her husband spoke to the surging, ecstatic crowd.
Mr. Assad’s televised speech of nearly two hours on Tuesday was his first public address since June; that he followed it with a public appearance the next day seemed to indicate an effort to counter his government’s image of isolation.
“I belong to this street,” Mr. Assad told the crowd in the square on Wednesday, speaking for about 10 minutes, apparently impromptu. “I came here to draw from your strength.”
A loyalist who attended the rally and spoke on the condition of anonymity said, “I swear to God, it was ecstatic — God protects him.”
Sanctions imposed by the United States, Europe, Turkey and the Arab League have battered Syria’s economy, and the league’s decision to suspend Syria’s membership in November was humiliating for a country that sees itself as a fulcrum of the region’s politics. The league’s 165 observers, who arrived in Syria last month, have complained of obstruction and attacks from both sides.
The observer who resigned on Wednesday, Anwar Abdel Malik, said he left because he felt that the mission was serving the interests of the government rather than trying to end the crackdown on protesters.
By the United Nations’ account, more than 5,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began, including more than 400 people since the observers arrived. Mr. Malik described the situation as a humanitarian disaster.
“The mission was a farce, and the observers have been fooled,” he told Al Jazeera, the Arabic satellite network based in Qatar. “The regime orchestrated it and fabricated most of what we saw, to stop the Arab League from taking action against the regime.”
He added, “The regime isn’t committing one war crime, but a series of crimes against its people.”
Khaled Abu Salah, an activist from Homs, a city near the Lebanese border that has been a hotbed of unrest, said that Mr. Malik, an Algerian who was once a political prisoner himself, was particularly moved after seeing the disfigured body of a protester named Abdel Jarim Darwish, from the Baba Amr neighborhood.
“After he saw this body during his tour of Baba Amr, he could not leave his hotel room for two days,” Mr. Salah said. “I think this was one of the reasons behind his resignation.”
Mr. Jacquier, an experienced reporter who had covered wars in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, was on assignment for a well-known television program called “Envoyé Spécial,” France 2 said in a statement.
The channel reported that Mr. Jacquier and a photographer, Christophe Kenck, had entered Syria legally and were interviewing street vendors in a pro-government neighborhood in southern Homs when a spontaneous demonstration began nearby.
The channel said that the specific events leading to Mr. Jacquier’s death were not clear, but that it appeared that he had become separated from Mr. Kenck when shooting broke out at the demonstration, and that he took refuge in a building that was hit by fire. Mr. Kenck was wounded.
According to Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group for journalists, Mr. Jacquier was killed by a shell that exploded among a group of journalists. A spokeswoman for the Dutch Foreign Ministry told reporters that a Dutch freelance journalist also was injured in Homs.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France paid tribute to Mr. Jacquier’s “exemplary career.”
“He was only doing his job as a journalist, by covering the violent events that are now taking place due to the unacceptable repression from the government against the population,” Mr. Sarkozy wrote. He said that France would investigate the circumstances of Mr. Jacquier’s death.
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