A Mexican crime reporter who was under police protection because of an attempt on his life was shot and killed Sunday, local officials said.

Alejandro Martinez Noguez, who ran a popular online news outlet, was killed while riding in a car with his bodyguards in the central state of Guanajuato after a reporting assignment, the security department of the city of Celaya said.

"Civilian attackers in a pickup truck opened fire with long arms at a car assigned to the reporter and his team of bodyguards by the city government," the secretariat said in a statement.

Police sources told AFP that highway police traveling with Martinez Noguez fired back at the assailants but the reporter was hit in the head while sitting in the back seat.

He was rushed to a hospital but died.

A woman in another car was hit and wounded by a stray bullet, the sources said.

Martinez Noguez survived a shooting in 2022 and since then had been assigned protection by the city government under a federal program for reporters who receive death threats, a government official told AFP.

Hard hit by violence related to drug trafficking, Mexico is one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists, news advocacy groups say.

Reporters Without Borders says more than 150 news people have been killed in Mexico since 1994.