Wake held for first US citizen to die fighting IS

Clergy members and police directed mourners into the wake on Tuesday evening for 36-year-old Keith Broomfield at Grace Baptist Church in Hudson, who is thought to be the first US citizen to die fighting Islamic State in Syria

Updated on: Jun 18, 2015, 02:10:31 IST

AP | By HT Correspondent, Hudson, Massachussets

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Friends and family have gathered in Massachusetts to honor an American killed while fighting the Islamic State group in Syria.

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Clergy members and police directed mourners into the wake on Tuesday evening for 36-year-old Keith Broomfield at Grace Baptist Church in Hudson.

Broomfield, who had no military training, is believed to be the first US citizen to die fighting alongside Kurdish forces against the Islamic State group.

He will be buried on Wednesday during a private ceremony following a morning funeral.

Kurdish officials have said that Broomfield died in battle in a Syrian village near the town of Kobani on the Turkish border. He joined a Syrian Kurdish militia fighting the Islamic State group on February 24.

His obituary says "his heart was for the protection of the innocence of Kurdish women and children."

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