FBI official: People recently left Minnesota to fight in Syria
Updated 11:45 a.m.
People living in Minnesota continue to travel overseas to fight for terrorist organizations in Syria, the top FBI official in Minneapolis said Thursday.
"There have been young people traveling from Minnesota to Syria ... people are still traveling as we speak," Richard Thornton, special agent in charge of the FBI's Minneapolis division, told the MPR News show The Daily Circuit.
"Very recently we have had individuals travel from Minnesota," he said. He declined to say more on the time frame but added the FBI is "actively investigating" people who have traveled and are planning to travel to fight, "as well as people going through the radicalization process."
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Thornton's comments came as officials work to determine if a second American fighting with the Islamic State group has been killed in Syria.
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Douglas McAuthur McCain, an American with Twin Cities ties, was killed recently in Syria while fighting with the Islamic State group, the National Security Council confirmed.
Thornton said he had nothing to add about a possible second American killed but that the FBI continues to investigate those traveling to fight as well as those recruiting fighters in the U.S.
The longer-term concern is that people living in the U.S. who hold anti-western views will travel overseas to fight and then return home to the U.S. with the skills and motivation to commit terrorism here, Thornton said.
"I don't think it's a real leap of logic to believe that's going to happen," he added.
NBC cited an anonymous member of the opposition Free Syrian Army as saying two Americans were killed in a battle last week with Islamic State fighters.
"We're aware of media reporting and social media activity indicating that a second American citizen associated with ISIL has been killed in Syria," NSC spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden. "At this point, we are not in a position to confirm those reports. Should that change, we will provide an update."
The U.S. confirmed the death of one American, Douglas McAuthur McCain, who grew up outside Minneapolis in the town of New Hope and most recently lived in San Diego.
NPR is reporting that a man from Brooklyn, N.Y. is also fighting Syria.
A relative, Kenneth McCain, told The Associated Press that the State Department called to tell his family that Douglas McCain had been killed in Syria. "We do not know if he was fighting anyone," he said.
Investigators were aware that McCain was in Syria to fight with the militant group, said a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss by name an ongoing investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Surveillance flights have begun over Syria on the orders of President Barack Obama, a move that could pave the way for airstrikes against the Islamic State group.
McCain, 33, attended Robbinsdale Cooper High School from 1997 to 1999, then transferred to Robbinsdale Armstrong High School, which he attended from January to June in 2000. A spokesperson for the district says there's no record he graduated.
According to Minnesota court records, McCain had a few encounters with police, mostly in the early 2000s, for driving offenses, disorderly conduct and a minor drug possession charge.
An acquaintance says that he'd seen McCain in San Diego in March.
Speaking from his apartment in New Hope, Isaac Chase, 28, remembers meeting McCain after moving from St. Paul. He was 11 at the time and didn't know anyone. One day he was in the park near the complex and saw a group of bigger kids playing basketball.
"Doug was the first one, pretty much the first one, to ask me if I wanted to play basketball with him. So I started playing. And ever since then we've been cool and hanging out. We always played basketball from pretty much sun up to sun down."
Chase said McCain was funny and outgoing, a "people person" who advised him to do the right things. The last time Chase saw McCain was in 2008. He was surprised by the news reports of McCain's death in Syria yesterday.
MPR reporters Mukhtar Ibrahim and Peter Cox contributed to this story.