BEIRUT (AP) — U.S. and British officials are mourning the loss of a Syrian anti-government activist who was shot dead along with his colleague in a rebel-held area in the country's northwest.

The U.S. State Department said Saturday that Raed Fares and Hammoud al-Juneid were "patriots" and "symbols of the Syrian revolution" who documented the "crimes" of the Syrian government and stayed true to nonviolence. The British envoy to Syria, Martin Longden, called their killing a "loss to Syria and its future."

Fares founded a radio station in his hometown of Kafranbel, in the northern Idlib province, that was critical of both the Syrian government and the Islamic militants who now rule the area. The two men were shot and killed in Kafranbel by unidentified gunmen.