An American man suspected of fighting with Islamic State militants operating in Iraq and Syria has been killed in the region, a U.S. security official said on Monday.
The official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters that the FBI was investigating the death of 33-year-old Douglas McAuthur McCain.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department would not confirm media reports that McCain had been killed in Syria but said the department had been in contact with his family and was providing “all consular assistance.”
Family members told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that McCain's mother had been called by an official from the State Department reporting that he had been killed in Syria over the weekend.
The newspaper reported that the family had been concerned with McCain's expressions of support of the Sunni Muslim militant group Islamic State, which has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria to the alarm of the Baghdad government and its allies in the West.
The Star Tribune and NBC News reported that McCain graduated from high school in the Minneapolis area in 1999 before moving to San Diego, where he attended community college.
Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Warren Strobel in Washington, Marty Graham in San Diego, David Bailey in Minneapolis and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Eric Walsh
