Article content

TORONTO — Eager to “do something about the scourge of ISIS,” Nazzareno Tassone left Edmonton in late June and made his way to Syria to join Kurdish fighters on the frontlines against the terrorist group.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Kurdish forces announce Canadian died fighting ISIL in Syria, calling him a martyr and a hero Back to video

In updates he sent to friends on Facebook, the former parking lot company employee spoke about the camaraderie he had found among the Kurds and international volunteers, and posted photos of himself in his battle gear.

“He expressed great pride in what he was doing and said that no matter how tense things got, he was not going to leave his brothers,” said Mike Webster, a former Canadian reservist who was in regular contact with Tassone.

But on Dec. 22, an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant propaganda outfit posted photos of the bodies of two Western-looking fighters it said had been killed in western Syria. One of them looked like Tassone.

On Tuesday, the Kurdish YPG militia announced that Tassone had indeed died on Dec. 21, along with a British volunteer fighter, Ryan Lock. Those familiar with the incident said their position had been overrun by ISIL.

The 23-year-old is the second Canadian volunteer fighter to die in Syria, after John Robert Gallagher was killed on Nov. 4, 2015, while fighting with a secretive unit of all-Western fighters called the 223, led by an American veteran.