SyriaGangbangin' in Syria: Two L.A. gang members in Syria to defend Assad regime
About a hundred Americans have gone to Syria to take part in the war, all of them — with the apparent exception of two L.A. gang members named “Creeper” and “Wino” — to fight on the side of the Sunni rebels against the Alawite Assad regime. In a video recently posted on YouTube, the two are shown brandishing AK-47s and firing at an unseen enemy. Their tattoos identify one of them as a member of Sureños-13, which is affiliated with the Mexican mafia, and the other as a member of Westside Armenian Power gang. They tell the camera they are “in Syria, gangbangin’.”
Two Los Angeles gang members are taking part in the Syria’s civil war, raising security worries on the West Coast.
ABC News reports that a video posted recently on YouTube shows two gang-tattooed and camouflaged men, who call themselves “Creeper” and “Wino,” holding AK-47s and saying that they are “in Syria, gangbangin’.”
The video has been posted online a few days ago, but the LAPD says they learnt about the two LA gang members in Syria five weeks ago.
Deputy Chief for Counterterrorism Mike Downing told ABC News Sunday that “My organized crime and gang investigators found it online and on Facebook,” Downing said. “We’re kind of concerned about their recruitment and whatever other associates they have here… We predicted this would happen — the [organized crime and terrorism] convergence. What we’re worried about is the ones we don’t know about here or coming back to the U.S.”
Downing said the two men — one Armenian and the other Latino, neither one a U.S. citizen — are members of a local gang, not radicalized Islamist jihadists. In fact, the two men are fighting as part of a Hezbollah formation to defend the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Downing said that one, perhaps even both, were deported from the United States some time ago, a fact mentioned on the gangsters’ public social networking posts.
In the video, Wino is shown firing his AK-47 at unseen enemies (or “enemigas,” as he calls them) through a hole in the wall of a destroyed building. Between rounds, he turns to the camera and says: “We’re on the f—king frontline, homie. Front-f—king-line, homie. We don’t give a f—k, dawg.”
Close to a hundred Americans went to Syria to take part in the war, all of them – with the apparent exception of the two L.A. gang members – to fight on the side of the Sunni rebels against the Alawite Assad regime.
About fifty of them have already returned to the United States, where they are under FBI monitoring. Some have been questioned, and others are under surveillance.
FBI director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told lawmakers that U.S. authorities are concerned that these individuals were radical enough to risk their lives in Syria, where they have also picked up useful training in terrorism tradecraft from the al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadist groups.
All fifty returnees have had combat experience in Syria.
ABC News notes that on Facebook, a man calling himself Wino Ayee Peeyakan, who looks to be the same man as in the YouTube video, has posted dozens of photos from Syria displaying his “APX3” gang tattoos, indicating he belongs to the Westside Armenian Power gang, and admits he was deported from the United States several years ago, leaving behind a child in Los Angeles.
“Man im come back thru Mexico turn my self in do couple of yers and get out [sic],” Peeyakan commented a year ago on a photo of his daughter.
The other gang member appearing with Peeyakan in photos and the video calls himself “Creeper.” He displays tattoos for Sureños-13, which is affiliated with the Mexican mafia.
“Tell the homies in f—king Middle East, homie, still gangbanging, homie, putting that s—t down for the big Sur-13 gang,” Creeper says in the video.
