Young Female Anti-ISIL Fighter Killed in Syria Marks First German Casualty

The fighter, whose name the Bild reported was Ivana Hoffmann, died early on Sunday near the town of Tall Tamr while fighting alongside the Kurdish People's Protection Units.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Germany's first casualty in the fight against the extremist Islamic State group was sustained over the weekend in northeastern Syria with the death of a female volunteer fighter, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported Monday.

SOHR said Hoffmann, 19, was the third foreign fighter and the first female foreign fighter killed while fighting ISIL. The previous deaths of British and Australian nationals occurred over the course of the last two weeks.

The observatory reported a total of three skirmishes between YPG and ISIL in the vicinity of the northeastern Hasakah region of Syria on Sunday. It did not report the overall number of casualties sustained by the liberation forces.

Reports of scores of volunteers travelling to Iraq and Syria to fight alongside Kurdish and Christian Assyrian forces against Islamic fundamentalists emerged last month. Their numbers, however, are widely overshadowed by Western fighters joining ISIL ranks.

On Sunday, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said some 3,000 Europeans had joined Islamic State so far, and warned that the figure may reach 10,000 by year-end.

Islamic State have been thrust into the spotlight for violence against national and religious minorities, killings, abductions and the defiling of religious and historic buildings.