Reporter Anthony Loyd shot twice in the leg after he and photographer Jack Hill were taken

Two Times journalists have been kidnapped, beaten and shot at by a Syrian rebel gang, before managing to escape with their lives.

Reporter Anthony Loyd and photographer Jack Hill were returning to Turkey from northern Syria with their fixer when they were apprehended by the rebels, who tied them up and threw them in the back of their car.

Loyd was hooded and they were driven to the town of Tall Rifat where they were held in a warehouse by guards who had been guiding them to the border.

But by looking through a crack in the car's boot, the journalists noticed an opportunity to force open the boot with their feet and escape. The fixer managed to steal a moped and raced away to a safe house nearby.

The Times journalists were recaptured, however, and beaten by the rebels, who also shot Loyd twice in the leg to stop him running away.

The pair did not escape until the Islamic Front, which was formed last year to counter extremists, heard the news and confronted the gang.

The three men eventually escaped to Turkey, where Loyd was taken to hospital. Loyd has won several awards for his reports on the conflict in Syria, and won the Foreign Reporter of the Year award from the Society of Editors earlier this year. One source told the Times that the kidnappers "had dollar signs in their eyes" when they realised they had captured Western journalists.