Religion and Politics

Lost in Syria

In The New Yorker, Nicholas Schmidle tells the story of Eric Harroun, a U.S. Army veteran whose travels led him to join the Free Syrian Army in its fight against the forces of President Bashar al-Assad. “Recent conflicts have mobilized a new generation of international fighters,” Schmidle writes, of which Harroun, addicted to drugs and the dangers of war, was one. “Often, their politics are muddy, their motivations inchoate.” Imprisoned for supporting anti-government organizations in Syria but valued by the F.B.I. for the information he provided, Harroun died in 2014 of an overdose.

Read at The New Yorker

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