We still know precious little about "Abu Hurayra al-Amriki," the American suicide bomber who reportedly blew himself up in Syria last weekend, but two US officials tell CNN that the man was indeed a US citizen who was raised and educated in Florida. They would not however reveal his real name, saying that investigators are still talking with his family. The attack is alarming for US intelligence, which has long worried that Americans fighting in Syria could be training to commit acts of terror at home.
The New York Times managed to interview two self-proclaimed Westerners fighting in Syria, one of whom might be American. Both were critical of the West's failure to stop the killing in Syria, and both shared the broader goal of establishing a caliphate ruled by Sharia law. "I saw our brothers in Afghanistan, and I realized that there is something very wrong that is happening in society," one says. "I had to do something about it." (More suicide bomber stories.)