Italian killed fighting Daesh in Syria: SDF

An Italian fighting alongside a Kurdish-led force to expel the Daesh militant group from its last pocket of territory in eastern Syria has been killed, the force said on Tuesday.

Lorenzo Orseti, 33, was killed in batle on Sunday as he fought diehard militants in the village of Baghouz, a spokesman for the USbacked Syrian Democratic Forces said.

“Two days ago, he was at the forefront of the fighting and he died in batle,” Mustefa Bali said.

“He was a frontline fighter in the ranks of the People’s Protection Units” or YPG, a Kurdish force spearheading the SDF, he said.

“He participated in more than one batle and more than one SDF campaign” against Daesh, Bali said.

Orseti even fought to defend the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northwest Syria, before it was overrun by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels a year ago, he said.

Daesh published a photograph of the slain fighter and a snapshot of his healthcare card on its social media channels Monday, claiming to have killed him in Baghouz.

The YPG on Tuesday released a video of Orseti, in which the Italian said he joined the Kurdish force of his own free will, knew the risks involved, and had no regrets.

Dressed in military uniform and with a weapon in his hand, he said he was in Syria mainly “because I believe in freedom -- I’m an Anarchist -- and I was tired of my life in Western society.”

“If you see this message, probably something’s going, you know,” he said, a yellow triangularshaped YPG flag on the wall behind him.

“I love you all, all of you -- all of you (who) passed through my life: my friends, my family -- my dog,” he said.

“Long live Kurdistan, long live the YPG and the YPJ,” its female fighter units, he added in Kurdish.

Orseti’s father told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera he and his wife were “very proud” of their son.

A former waiter and chef from Florence, Orseti had initially travelled to Syria in September 2017 as an observer but felt “increasingly involved,” his father said.