A U.S. Army veteran who has fought alongside al Qaeda-linked extremist rebels against the government in Syria has been killed, according to a pro-regime video-sharing site.
A graphic video posted online by Syria Tube, a pro-government site, shows the death of someone who resembles Eric Harroun, 30, a Muslim convert who boasted of his Jihadi exploits on his Facebook page, AOL Defense reported Thursday.
“Terrorists, including American Extremist ‘Eric Harroun,’ Have Been Terminated,” reads the headline of the video, according to AOL.
Neither Mr. Harroun’s family, nor the Pentagon, could confirm whether he was dead or alive, AOL Defense reported.
On Monday, Fox News first reported that Mr. Harroun, who was discharged as a private first class in 2003 and has been fighting for many months alongside Syrian rebels, had joined the notorious extremist group Jubhat al Nusra, which the U.S. State Department says is a front for al Qaeda in Iraq.
“I was separated in a battle and most of my group was K.I.A. and al-Nusra picked me up,” Mr. Harroun told Fox News.
Mr. Harroun, known in Syria to rebels and loyalists alike as “The American,” has traveled widely throughout the Arab world during the wave of revolution there called the Arab Spring, according to his social-media postings. He joined protesters overthrowing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak before moving to fight alongside rebels attempting to depose Syrian President Bashar Assad.
He told Fox News he might go to the Palestinian Territories next, to join their fight against Israel.
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Shaun Waterman is an award-winning reporter for The Washington Times, covering foreign affairs, defense and cybersecurity. He was a senior editor and correspondent for United Press International for nearly a decade, and has covered the Department of Homeland Security since 2003. His reporting on the Sept. 11 Commission and the tortuous process by which some of its recommendations finally became ...
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