The reporter for Turkish state broadcaster TRT World, was shot dead by unidentified in Al Bab city, in Aleppo’s northwestern neighborhood.

Khattab was working on a photographic report about displaced people in Al Bab and the dangers surrounding their living conditions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the middle of his work, two masked men on a motorbike shot him 10 times near the city’s cemetery, killing him instantly.

Al Bab is controlled by Ankara-backed Syrian armed groups and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). Khattab, also known as ‘Kara Al-Safrani’, had earlier warned on his Facebook account about an assassination attempt against him on 23 September. The post, published four days after the threat, identified a man named Ahmed Al-Abdullah as the person threatening him.

According to the journalist’s statement, the threat was thought to be related to a report he was working on in the village of Tar’hine, located in the Aleppo region, about living conditions, the lack of a school or clinic, and the poverty local people were living in. Due to the lack of responses by the police about this issue, he was forced to leave his house.