Two Americans killed battling ISIS in Syria

Two Americans fighting alongside Kurdish forces in northern Syria were killed last week as the battle to retake the Islamic State’s defacto capital there continues well into its second month.

Nicholas Warden, 29, and Robert Grodt, 28, died last week on the outskirts of Raqqa, according to U.S. officials and a statement released by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, known as the YPG.

Neither appeared to have any prior formal military experience.

Another westerner, a British man named Luke Rutter, was also killed in the fighting, the statement said.

In a video posted by the YPG, Warden said he was from Buffalo, and traveled to join the YPG in February to fight the Islamic State because of the attacks inspired by the terrorist group in places, such as San Bernardino, Calif., and Orlando, Fla. He said he had also received some military training from the group.

Grodt, a onetime volunteer medic from the Occupy Wall Street movement, had also traveled to join the YPG around the same time, according to Ron Kuby, a family friend and lawyer. Grodt was originally from California. Grodt’s mother, Tammy, confirmed that she had received notification about his death but has heard little else about how he died.

Kuby, speaking on behalf of the family, said the State Department had called the family from the American consulate in Irbil, Iraq, and informed them of Grodt’s death.

Grodt leaves behind a 5-yearold daughter and his partner, Kaylee Dedrick. Grodt met Dedrick during an Occupy Wall Street protest in September 2011 after she was pepper sprayed, a moment that was infamously captured on video.

Warden and Grodt’s deaths bring the total number of Americans killed fighting alongside the YPG to roughly a dozen. Three Americans, Jordan MacTaggart, William Savage and Levi Jonathan Shirley were killed last year.

It is unknown how many Americans are fighting alongside militia groups in Syria. Dozens of U.S. citizens, including military veterans, have flocked to battlegrounds overseas, including those in Iraq and Ukraine, to fight in wars fueled by an array of ideologies and backed by various state actors.