Canadian fighting ISIL in Syria killed in suicide- bombing attack
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says a Canadian fighting the Islamic State group in Syria has been killed in a suicide attack.
The observatory says in a posting on its website that John Robert Gallagher was killed in the attack by an ISIL fighter on Wednesday at a farm near Dalhu village in the predominantly Kurdish province of Hassakeh that borders Iraq.
Maclean’s magazine says Gallagher is a former infantryman with the 2nd Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, who went into the Middle East in July to fight with a U. S.- backed Kurdish militia known as the YPG.
A posting on Gallagher’s Facebook page that says it was written by his mother, Valerie, says she heard from “representatives from the YPG in Syria and in London and it seems that John Robert was killed by a suicide bomber.”
The posting says Gallagher “thought this was such an important fight and he has always been a man of principle, who believed very strongly in human rights and justice.”
Herald photographer Crystal Schick, who was with a colleague in northern Iraq over the summer covering Kurdish forces, said she met Gallagher south of the city of Kirkuk. At the time, he had been in Iraq for a month or so and was eager to explain that he had joined the fight as a matter of principle, to take up arms against a common enemy.
“He felt like he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t try to help,” Schick recalls.
Originally from Windsor, Ont., Gallagher had lived for a time in Calgary. Given that he had a military background in the Canadian Forces, he felt passionately about joining Kurdish forces to combat ISIL, Schick said.
“He was very articulate and passionate ... He really believed in the reason he was there.”
The U. S.- led coalition has been targeting ISIL with airstrikes since September 2014, killing 12,000 extremists without weakening the group.