[CNN] An American named Douglas McCain was killed last weekend in Syria, where he was fighting for ISIS, two U.S. officials told CNN.The man's uncle, Ken McCain, said that his nephew had gone to fight as a jihadi and that the U.S. State Department told the family Monday about the death.
Douglas McCain died in a battle between rival bully boy groups in the suburbs of Aleppo, Syria's once-bustling commercial capital and largest city, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that monitors the conflict.
Like the U.S. officials, the group described McCain as an ISIS fighter and said he died battling al-Nusra Front, an al Qaeda-linked organization that the U.S. government has blacklisted as a foreign terror organization.
McCain is not the first American to fight alongside forces of Evil in Syria, nor is he the first killed -- even if he may be the first with ISIS. Attorney General Eric
Inaction JacksonHolder
... aka Mister Fast and Furious...
estimated this summer that there are 7,000 imported muscle in the war-ravaged Middle Eastern nation, many from places like Europe and the United States.
Yet McCain's death takes on added significance, and perhaps urgency, given the evolution of American strategy pertaining to ISIS and Syria.
Until now, Washington largely has limited its involvement in Syria to diplomatic efforts and supporting "moderate opposition,"
| Suuuure Washington efforts were so limited. |
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
That's the same goal as ISIS, which aims to rule a caliphate, known as the Islamic State, spanning Iraq and Syria.
Even so, the United States initiated
The United States has started gathering intelligence on the locations of ISIS leadership and troops in Syria, two U.S. officials told CNN. President Barack Obama
Ready to Rule from Day One...
has OK'd reconnaissance flights over the war-ravaged nation, according to a U.S. official.
Official: Obama authorizes recon flights over Syria
Who was Douglas McCain?
According to his uncle, Douglas McCain's journey to Syria began after he converted several years ago from Christianity to Islam.
The family wasn't alarmed by his conversion, but they became aware of Facebook posts sympathetic to ISIS when he traveled to what they believed to be Turkey.
The fact that Douglas McCain became a jihadi left his family "devastated" and "just as surprised as the country," Ken McCain said.
He described the nephew he knew as "a good person, loved his family, loved his mother, loved his faith" -- the latter being a reference to the Christianity he practiced before his conversion.
U.S. counterterrorism Sherlocks had been looking into McCain's activities for some time before his death, one U.S. official said.
He was on a list of Americans who are believed to have joined Death Eater groups and who would be stopped and subjected to additional scrutiny if he traveled, according to the official.