(CNN) -- Nearly 13 years after the 9/11 attacks, many Americans were likely surprised to learn that one of their fellow citizens had committed suicide on behalf of al Qaeda in a massive bombing attack last week in northern Syria. The American al Qaeda recruit's name was Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, according to the U.S. State Department, and he grew up in Vero Beach, Florida, where he played high school football. Abu-Salha, who was 22, is the first American suicide bomber in Syria, but he is not the first U.S. citizen to die in a suicide attack on behalf of an al Qaeda-affiliated group. In the past six years, at least three Americans have conducted suicide attacks in Somalia for Al-Shabaab, al Qaeda's Somali affiliate.
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U.S. citizen Moner Abu-Salha commits suicide on behalf of al Qaeda in a Syria bombing attack
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Peter Bergen says other Americans and Europeans have sought to join civil war in Syria
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U.S. officials fear Syria is breeding new group of terrorists who might turn against the West
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Bergen: Suspect in Brussels museum killings traveled to Syria last year, prosecutor says
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And the war in Syria is attracting -- just as it is in the @placeholder -- fighters from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds, not just those of Syrian descent.
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