US citizen killed in Syria while fighting against Isis as part of Kurdish group

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/10/us-citizen-killed-syria-fighting-isis-kurdish

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An American fighting with Kurdish forces against the Islamic State group in Syria has been killed in battle, authorities said on Wednesday, probably the first US citizen to die fighting alongside them against the extremists.

Keith Broomfield of Massachusetts died on 3 June in a battle in the Syrian village of Qentere, which is near the border town of Kobani, said Nasser Haji, an official with a group of Kurdish fighters known as the YPG. He had joined the YPG on 24 February under the nom de guerre Gelhat Raman, Haji said.

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Haji did not elaborate on the circumstances of Broomfield’s death, nor did he know the man’s hometown.

A State Department spokesman, Jeff Rathke, confirmed Bloomfield’s death, but declined to provide any details about the circumstances. He said the US was providing consular assistance to his family.

The fight against the Islamic State group has attracted dozens of westerners, including a number of Iraq war veterans who have made their way back to the Middle East to join Kurdish fighters, who have been most successful against the extremist group.

Many are spurred on by Kurdish social media campaigners and a sense of duty rooted in the 2003 US-led military invasion of Iraq. And while the US and its coalition allies bomb the extremists from the air, Kurds say they hope more westerners will join them on the ground to fight.

Previously, a British citizen, an Australian and a German woman have been killed fighting with the Kurds.

Backed by US-led coalition airstrikes, Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria have successfully pushed back Islamic State group militants from Kobani and scores of nearby villages. More recently, they have closed in on the Islamic State-held town of Tal Abyad near the Turkish border. The town is the Islamic State group’s main access point to Turkey from Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital in Syria.