Eric Harroun

Andrew J. Tabler, a specialist on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, stated that he had seen Harroun's online postings and also expressed concern at the time that they could cause problems for Harroun later on. He described Harroun as a war tourist and as pretty well-known to those following the Syrian war. “I saw those videos and thought, ‘Buddy, you better watch out” he said.

He later did an interview around March 2, 2014 with two journalists working with FoxNews. However, the article later published on FOX (on March 11) about him stated he had descended into "Islamic fanaticism" and selectively used quotes from his Facebook page. A follow-up article was published three weeks later. He then visited the US consulate in Istanbul, worried that he would be labelled as a terrorist and in need of a new passport. When he went in, the FBI official had the first FOX news story printed on his desk. Harroun was interrogated for periods of several hours (by both an FBI and CIA official) over the course of two days. He later claimed that he had been set up by FOX News and that he would have to "hire a fucking Jewish lawyer to sue their asses when I get back". He denied he was affiliated with al-Qaeda in any way whatsoever: “I’m not Al-Qaeda. I like my beer and my smoke and I like my women. I’m not about the praying five times a day and all that shit.”

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway also supported this narrative. He claimed that the charges were not sufficient to warrant Harroun's imprisonment for life. He described Harroun as being possibly "wacko", but also conceded that "based only on the reporting I've seen — he doesn't appear to be an al Qaeda sympathizer, much less a terrorist" and that "there's no evidence in the news reports that Harroun has engaged in terrorism or any anti-American activities.

On April 9, 2014, Eric's family posted on his Facebook page announcing his death a day earlier from an accidental overdose. Harroun’s autopsy revealed acute levels of heroin and sertraline, an antidepressant, in his body. Methamphetamine, amphetamine, codeine, and trazodone were also detected. The medical examiner ruled his death an accident. Harroun was looking forward to getting off of probation early and was planning to return to Syria once he was able to do so. He is survived by his father, mother, and sister.

On January 7, 2013, Harroun crossed into Syria and made his way to the town of Azaz. He alleged he joined the 'Amr ibn al-'As brigade, a faction of the Free Syrian Army. On January 10, 2013 he was then sent on an attack on a Syrian army camp with a group of fellow fighters. In the confusion of the fighting he was separated from his group, most of whom he believes were killed. In the retreat, he jumped on the back of an Al-Nusra truck (unaware of which faction it belonged to) and was taken back to their base. Harroun later stated:

On September 20, 2013, Harroun, under a plea deal, pleaded guilty to "an obscure law regulating munition exports" and was released from jail. He was sentenced to time served, under this secret plea bargain, in a move which generated surprise in the media. He later agreed to an interview with ABC15 Arizona, in which he defended himself against the charges he had faced and spoke at length about his time in Syria. Following his release from prison, Harroun reportedly suffered from depression and began drinking and using heroin. He was admitted into a hospital in December 2013 after being found in his bathroom with a syringe on the counter and having stopped breathing.

According to a Fox News article, while Harroun was a student at Pima Community College in Tucson in the fall of 2010, he began to identify himself as a Muslim, allegedly after becoming close to two Iraqi-American brothers he knew. However, Harroun denied this and said that his conversion to Islam was the result of studying the Middle East in general while he was in the 6th grade.

He visited Lebanon in May 2010, Prague in August 2010, and Egypt and Lebanon again during December 2010. In 2011, while still in Egypt, he took part in the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tahrir Square (allegedly being arrested and held at gunpoint by Hosni Mubarak's security forces), and finally visited Turkey in November 2012.

After eventually getting back to the FSA base on February 6 (after nearly a month of fighting with the al-Nusra front) he discovered that his passport had been destroyed in a mortar attack. After posting photographs to Facebook showing he and several of his FSA comrades on February 6, he left Syria on February 10th, his commander requesting that he fetch weapons from Turkey and bring them back. However, he chose to remain in Turkey and to go back to Istanbul.

Harroun later got a job at Artisan Mortgage company in Phoenix, Arizona between 2006 and 2008. He described his job as finalizing "applications for home loans or second mortgages, and a lot of other boring paperwork."

Harroun joined the United States Army for three years, serving in the U.S. Army's 586th Engineering Company from 2000 to 2003, where he attained the rank of private first class, but was never deployed overseas. He was discharged after a jeep crash at his base in Fort Riley, Kansas, which left him with a serious head injury, resulting in a metal plate being inserted into his head by doctors. According to his father Darryl, this caused his son to have exacerbated depression, mood swings, and other side effects. "He was already suffering from depression before that, and the accident just kind of multiplied it."

Eric Glenn Harroun (11 June 1982 – 8 April 2014) was an American Sunni Muslim convert, and former fighter with the Free Syrian Army in Syria, during the Syrian Civil War. Upon returning to the United States in March 2013, Harroun was detained from March 28, 2013 to September 20, 2013 and charged with various offenses, before being released under a secret plea deal. Harroun died of an accidental drug overdose on 8 April 2014.