Update to this previous story.
Via WPRI
The body of an American who died fighting with Kurdish forces against the Islamic State group in Syria was handed over on Thursday to his family at a Turkish border crossing, a Kurdish official said.
Hundreds of people turned up in the Kurdish town of Kobani to bid farewell to Keith Broomfield before his body was handed over to family at the Mursitpinar gate, said Idriss Naasan.
Broomfield, from Massachusetts, died on June 3 in battle in a Syrian village near Kobani, making him likely the first U.S. citizen to die fighting alongside Kurds against the Islamic State group.
He had joined the People’s Protection Units known as the YPG on Feb. 24 under the nom de guerre Gelhat Rumet. The YPG are the main Kurdish guerrilla battling the Islamic State group in Syria.
The U.S. Department of State confirmed Broomfield’s death Wednesday but declined to provide any details about the circumstances.
It was not immediately clear who from Broomfield’s family was there to receive his body on the Turkish side Thursday. Kurds in Turkey lined the road, waving flags and applauding as the convoy carrying the body drove by.
The fight against the Islamic State group has attracted dozens of Westerners, including 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.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which keeps track of Syria’s war, said more than 400 foreign fighters have joined the YPG to fight the Islamic State group in recent months, including Europeans, Americans, Australian and thousands of Kurdish fighters from Turkey and Iran. It was not possible to independently confirm the figure.
Many are spurred on by Kurdish social media campaigners and a sense of duty rooted in the 2003 U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq, where Islamic State fighters recently have rolled back gains U.S. troops had made.