Journalist and photographer Hussein Khattab (pictured) has been assassinated in northern Aleppo Province in northwest Syria.

Khattab was attacked by gunmen on Saturday morning in the town of al-Bab. He was struck by about 10 bullets and died immediately.

Local sources said there were two masked attackers on a motorcycle. No one has been apprehended.

Khattab said recently that he had received death threats. He blamed local police for not acting on his complaint: “I was forced to leave the area and leave my house, afraid for my life.”

Hussein Khattab earlier published a post on his official page explaining that he had been subjected to death threats, blaming the Qabbasin district police for failing to perform their duties, after he submitted a complaint to the police, saying: “Four days have passed since trying to have me killed and I filed a complaint against the people who tried to kill me to the police command in Qabassin, which did nothing. I was forced to leave the area and leave my house, afraid for my life.

Aleppo Province is divided between anti-Assad groups, who have held territory since 2012, and Assad regime forces, enabled by Russian and Iranian bombing and ground operations, who have reoccupied much of the province since 2016.

Much of northwest Syria is controlled by the Islamist bloc Jabhat al-Nusra, which has been accused by local activists and human rights organizations of abuses, detentions, and assassinations. Activists also say the killing may have been carried out by a cell of the Islamic State, which was expelled from the northwest in 2015-2016.

Forcibly displaced from the town of as-Safira, near Aleppo city, Khattab documented the daily life of those in northwest Syria who had been driven from their homes, including more than 1.4 million who fled a Russian-regime offensive between April 2019 and March 2020.

In his last photograph, posted on Friday, he featured a displaced girl who triumphed in an international maths competition.

Khattab worked for Turkey’s TRT and was a member of the board of directors of the Aleppo and Countryside Journalists Union.

He is the father of four young children, one of whom is less than a year old. Activists are trying to raise money for the family.