American fighting with Kurds against Islamic State killed in Syria

An American man who died fighting alongside Syrian Kurdish fighters to oust Islamic State from the northern Syrian city of Manbij has been named as Levi Jonathan Shirley.

Shirley, who adopted the Kurdish name of Agir Servan, was killed on July 14, the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) said in a statement posted on its website on Thursday (July 22).

The YPG is part of a U.S.-backed alliance of Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters called the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), which launched an offensive in May to seize the last territory held by Islamic State insurgents on Syria's frontier with Turkey.

The YPG has attracted foreign fighters from around the world, including Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia and Turkey. A YPG official said in February that seven Westerners had died fighting with the group.

In May, the YPG said a Portuguese national had died, also fighting in Manbij.

The SDF has largely avoided fighting forces allied to Syrian President Bashar al Assad and has focused on battling the hardline Islamic State militants in Syria's five-year-old conflict.

Shirley's mother, Susan Shirley, told US media on Thursday that she was first notified of her son's death two days earlier (July 19) in an email from a Kurdish official. Her 24-year old son was "soft hearted" wanted to "fight injustice," she said.

Video released by the YPG on Thursday shows Levi Shirley stating he believed Islamic State was the "definition of pure evil".

Levi Shirley joined the Kurds in February 2015 after being denied entry to the U.S. Marine Corps for "bad eyes," according to his mother. His father is a veteran of the Vietnam conflict.