ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdish forces fighting ISIS in Syria announced the death of three Western volunteers on Tuesday.
Robert Grodt of California, Nicholas Warden of Buffalo, New York, and Luke Rutter of Birkenhead, UK were all killed in Raqqa last week.
In a statement announcing their deaths along with four natives of northern Syria, the Kurdish YPG, said “Our people will also never forget and stay true to the martyrs who came here and who accepted Rojava as their homeland and its people as their own people and fought for them.”
Robert Grodt of California, Nicholas Warden of Buffalo, New York, and Luke Rutter of Birkenhead, UK were all killed in Raqqa last week.
In a statement announcing their deaths along with four natives of northern Syria, the Kurdish YPG, said “Our people will also never forget and stay true to the martyrs who came here and who accepted Rojava as their homeland and its people as their own people and fought for them.”
Brit Luke Rutter, 22, who fought alongside the YPG under the Kurdish nom de guerre Soro Zinar, had joined the forces in March, according to the YPG.
“I think the YPG, they stand for the best opportunity for peace that this region might have,” Rutter said in a video released by the force in which he explained why he had joined them.
He said the only thing he regretted about going to northern Syria was lying to his friends and family about where he was going when he left home.
Nicholas Warden, 29, fighting under the nom de guerre Rodi Deysie, joined the YPG in February. “I joined the YPG to fight ISIS because of the terrorist attacks they were doing in Orlando, in San Bernardino, in Nice, in Paris.”
Robert Grodt, 28, took the name Demhat Goldman when he joined the YPG in March 2017.
He joined the YPG to help the Kurds “in their struggle for autonomy within Syria and elsewhere. Also to do my best to be able to fight Daesh and help create a more secure world.”
In a video message, he sent his love to his family, especially his daughter, apologizing for not being there for her.
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