Harroun – the Occidental Jihadi

Eric Harroun, an American Muslim convert accused of traveling to Syria and fighting alongside terrorists there, died about a weekend ago.  Journalist-photog “adventurer” Robert Young Pelton wrote an article about Harroun for Vice shortly after Harroun's death: The All-American Life and Death of Eric Harroun. RYP says Harroun was “A very terrible Muslim,” and describes Harroun thusly; “He didn't hate America, but the past year had made him feel used and betrayed by the US government, which he had served officially as a soldier and unofficially as – so he thought – an informant to the FBI and CIA.

Whether you agree or disagree with what he did, think he died of a drug overdose or was the victim of some top secret government agent/assassin spy plot, this is an interesting read.  Excerpt from the article:x

The order to attack was barked over the radio, and Eric pulled the trigger. The deafening screech and bright flash stunned him, but the grenade hit the wall. Shouts of “Yalla Shabab!” and “Allahu Akbar!” rang out as gunfire from both sides intensified. Harroun loaded the second grenade and tried to aim in the dark. He fired again, then did the same with the third grenade. In the dark and confusion, he had no idea if he had destroyed enough of the wall to let anyone get through, but that didn’t matter for now; soon the rebels abandoned their positions and retreated to the safety of their pickup trucks. In all, Eric’s role in the battle lasted 10 minutes.

“I had been wanting to use a RPG — it seemed fun at the time,” Eric told me a year later. “It was my first time using one. They make a loud boom, and are very effective.”

A few months later, Eric would be sitting in a Virginia prison as he was informed the US government planned to put him to death for what he'd done.

Read the entirety of Pelton's article here.