ANKARA: Hussein Khattab, a freelance reporter for the Arabic service of Turkey’s state-run broadcaster TRT, was assassinated in the Syrian city of Al-Bab on Dec. 12 by unidentified assailants on motorcycles.

Ammar Hamou, a well-known Syrian journalist, was a colleague and friend of the “fearless” 38-year-old reporter from when they worked together on Syrianvoice.org.

Hamou said it “was not the first time” that his friend was attacked in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo where he reported from.

“Hussein was seen as a threat from the regime, the opposition, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and he was an active journalist, documenting violations, regardless of the perpetrator. Unfortunately, he paid for this objective coverage with his life,” Hamou told Arab News.

Although Khattab was able to visit Turkey continuously, he preferred to remain a field reporter in his home country to report for several international and local outlets.

He was married with three children. Khattab was from Sefira village in the Aleppo countryside, which is under the control of Bashar Assad’s regime. However, in the past few years, the reporter lived in areas under Turkish control.

“From my point of view, Free Syrian Police and the local factions bear responsibility for his death because he recently filed a complaint fearing for his life, but local forces did not take his complaint into consideration, and the authorities did not provide him with protection he needed,” Hamou said.

Hamou added that his friend wrote a very emotional note on the criminal complaint: “I left my house for fear, while the killers were safe.”

Khattab was previously attacked in another district of Aleppo three months ago. He also survived another assassination attempt days before his death, but did not receive any protection following the attack. Any connection between the incidents is still being examined.

Al-Bab is a Turkish zone of influence, but Turkey leaves the administration of these areas to the Syrian military factions and the military police.

Ammar Hamou, Syrian journalist

Navar Saban, a military analyst at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies in Istanbul, said the reporter was well known in the area because of his detailed reports about the security situation in Al-Bab and relations with local factions that “behaved like warlords.”

Saban said: “The warlords in the region are a major problem that Turkey also knows very well. They are smuggling between Kurdish areas; they work for the regime and the SDF at the same time. Ensuring security in that zone is very difficult. Local police couldn’t have investigated the suspects whose names were revealed by the reporter just before his death,” said Saban.

The exploitation that evolving warlords cause in Syria through illegal operations is a well-known topic of debate in the region that is governed in a decentralized way. Although they are trained by Turkey, local authorities are still unable to manage the region efficiently amid the ongoing chaos of the civil war.

After being liberated from Daesh in February 2017, Al-Bab moved under the control of Turkey through Ankara-backed Syrian rebels and local law enforcement officers in the region.

“Al-Bab is a Turkish zone of influence, but Turkey leaves the administration of these areas to the Syrian military factions and the military police. The Syrians themselves are documenting daily violations of the law by local factions, and they feel that the factions cannot ensure security in the region,” Hamou said.

The city of Al-Bab, located near Turkish southern border, has recently suffered several terror attacks, with the detonation of a bomb-laden vehicle last month causing multiple casualties.

Separately, Turkey conducted a widespread operation against people allegedly connected with another warlord hailing from Iran.

A total of 13 people tied to Iranian drug lord Naji Sharifi Zindashti were arrested on Monday in a comprehensive operation by Turkish intelligence officers following the revelation of a plot to kidnap an Iranian opponent in Istanbul.

Meanwhile, Germany’s Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann recently suggested that “Syrian criminals” should be expelled from Germany and transferred to Turkish-controlled areas in northeastern Syria. His comments sparked widespread criticism.