A Flint, Michigan woman was killed fighting for Syrian opposition forces, the FBI told the Associated Press, Thursday.
The 33-year-old woman, identified as Nicole Lynn Mansfield, was apparently shot dead by members of Bashar al-Assad's army, when she and two other people from the UK were driving through the northwestern province of Idlib, Syria.
State-run television news showed images of a black car dotted with bullets, three bodies that had sustained multiple gunshot wounds, and a hidden supply of firearms concealed in the vehicle, as well as a hand-drawn map of a government building and a flag that belongs to opposition front al-Nursa, which has ties to al-Qaeda.
A pro-Syrian government news agency claimed that Mansfield was fighting for a group, bit did not specify to the Associated Press whether or not it was al-Nursa.
Mansfield's family has come forward following Nicole's death. Aunt Monica Mansfield Speelman told the Detroit Free Press that Nicole had converted to Islam after she married an Arab man. She and her ex-husband split a few years ago, but Nicole remained Muslim, donning a hijab and praying five times a day.
Members of the Mansfield family said they were unsure as to why Nicole was fighting in Syria, but mentioned that her conversion was bothersome.
The family raised Nicole and other next-of-kin as Baptist Christians. After her conversion, however, Nicole insisted that Islam was the religion for her.
"She told people 'that the best way of life was to be a Muslim. And that women should wear scarves...women should always cover their head,'" grandmother Carole Mansfield, 72, told the Detroit Free Press. "She had a heart of gold, but she was weak minded. I think she could have been brain washed."
"I am sick over it," Speelman said of her niece's death. "I don't think she was [a terrorist], but God only knows."
Nicole attended Mott Community College and worked in home health care for almost 10 years, her grandmother said. She left high school when she became pregnant with her now 18-year-old daughter.
The U.S. State Department said that it was still investigating the young woman's death after seeing the report on Syrian television.
One official from the State Department told Reuters that authorities were 'aware of the case' and were in the midst of recovering more details from the scene of the shooting.
Check out the breaking news video below that was broadcast on Syrian television when the story first surfaced.
