QAMISHLI Syria — After months in which the United States and Europe issued warnings about their citizens traveling to Syria fight on behalf of ISIS, there are new reports of Westerners going to fight on the other side, against the militants. A man who said he is a U.S. citizen and former soldier from Ohio said in a video interview inside Syria that he had come to join Kurdish fighters to battle ISIS. Other Americans were also fighting there on behalf of a Syrian Kurdish group, said the man, who identified himself as Brian Wilson and spoke to a freelance photographer working for Reuters in Syria. NBC News has not independently confirmed his story.
"There are a few Americans who wanted to come here and help the YPG in any way we can," he said in the northeast Syrian Kurdish city of Qamishli, referring to the main Kurdish group fighting against Islamist militants in Syria. Wilson is the second American believed to have joined the YPG forces. Reports emerged last week about a 28-year-old Army veteran from Wisconsin who traveled to Syria to join the fight. Wilson said he met YPG fighters through "Kurdish contacts" and that he hadn't yet engaged in combat. "Everything has been fine. They're very nice, very accommodating, hospitable. Very good people," he said of his hosts.
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