WORLD_ U.S. Citizen Killed Fighting Alongside Islamic Extremists

U.S. Citizen Killed Fighting Alongside Islamic Extremists

By Angela Greiling Keane
Aug 27, 2014 11:07 AM ET
Bloomberg


The U.S. said an American citizen was killed while fighting alongside Islamic extremists in Syria, highlighting concerns that foreign combatants involved in the conflict pose an increasing global threat.

Related:  Obama `Asleep at Switch' on Islamic State, Mica Says

Douglas McAuthur McCain, 33, who was raised in Minnesota, died last weekend while fighting with the Islamic State group that advocates the establishment of a caliphate spanning the Muslim world. NBC News reported his death earlier, and the White House National Security Council confirmed it today.

“We were aware of U.S. Citizen Douglas McAuthur McCain’s presence in Syria and can confirm his death,” Caitlin Hayden, a National Security Council spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement. “We continue to use every tool we possess to disrupt and dissuade individuals from traveling abroad for violent jihad and to track and engage those who return.”

U.S. and European officials have reported a surge in their citizens traveling to fight in Syria. U.S. officials estimate that more than 7,000 foreign fighters, including hundreds of Europeans and dozens of American, are operating there.

The confirmation of a U.S. casualty fighting for Islamic extremists may escalate the conflict for which President Barack Obama authorized surveillance flights. The flights could be a precursor for air strikes similar to those the U.S. is waging against Islamic State militants in Iraq.

“We have to use our power wisely,” Obama said today in remarks to the American Legion, the nation’s largest veterans service organization, in Charlotte, North Carolina. “History teaches about the dangers of overreaching.”

Assisting Family

The State Department is providing assistance to McCain’s family, spokeswoman Jen Psaki said today.

“We are in contact with the family and are providing all possible consular assistance,” she said. “Out of respect for the family we’re not going to be adding any more comment at this time.”

McCain graduated from high school in 1999 in a Twin Cities suburb before moving to the San Diego area, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. In Minnesota, McCain was convicted for minor drug possession, theft, disorderly conduct and driving after his license was revoked, the newspaper reported.

Kenyata McCain told the Star Tribune that McCain’s mother received a call yesterday from the State Department reporting his death in Syria. Kenyata McCain said she was in touch with Douglas McCain as recently as Aug. 22, and “he was telling all of us he was in Turkey,” the newspaper reported.

‘Several Dozens’

Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said today in an interview on CNN that McCain was one of “several dozens” of Americans fighting in Syria and Iraq.

“They’re another aspect of the complicated problem here, not so much ISIS itself,” Reed said, using an alternate name for the Islamic State group, “but individuals who are radicalized and then have American or European passports and don’t fit the stereotype of a jihadist radical but then can come back into Europe or the United States,”

They would be able to more easily travel to Western countries given their citizenship, he said.

Obama will be leading a meeting at the United Nations General Assembly next month in New York on the threat posed by foreign fighters returning from battlefields in the Middle East to attack targets in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.

At least 100 Americans have gone to Syria to join Islamic extremist groups such as the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State, Republican Representative Peter King of New York, chairman of the U.S. House Homeland Security subcommittee on counter terrorism, said at a congressional hearing last month.

At least one American has died as a suicide bomber after spending two months in a training camp operated by al-Nusra Front in Aleppo, Syria, King said. He was Moner Mohammad Abusalha, 22, who was born and raised in Florida, reportedly traveled to Syria in late 2013, and blew himself up in an attack in Syria on May 25, 2014.

To contact the reporter on this story: Angela Greiling Keane in Washington at agreilingkea@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at skomarow1@bloomberg.net Michael Shepard, Justin Blum

***


Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc . 
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị . 



conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
27082014
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC