European Killed Fighting IS in Syria

A foreign fighter believed to be either British or Greek has been killed in Syria while battling the Islamic State group alongside Kurdish militia, a monitor said Tuesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the man died early Tuesday from wounds suffered in a battle with jihadists the day before in the northeastern province of Hasakeh.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP the fighter was "a European citizen who had been living in Britain, but it is not clear whether he was British or Greek."

He had been fighting with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), a local militia, in an area southwest of the town of Tal Hamis, which Kurdish fighters seized from IS last week.

No further details about the man's identity were immediately available.

He was the second Westerner believed to have died fighting with the Kurds against IS, after an Australian was reported killed in the same area last week.

Dozens of Westerners are believed to have joined the ranks of the YPG in Syria and other militia battling IS, including Assyrian Christian forces in Iraq.

But their number pales in comparison with the thousands of foreign jihadists who have rallied to join IS since it seized large parts of Iraq and Syria and declared an Islamic "caliphate" last year.