British Police Investigate New Syrian Death

Counter-terror police searched a house in northwest England Thursday after the reported death of a Briton in Syria, a day after raiding a home related to an alleged suicide bomber.

The BBC named the dead man as Anil Khalil Raoufi from the Didsbury district of Manchester.

Police confirmed they were carrying out a search and offering support to the family.

"Officers investigating a reported death of a British citizen in Syria are today carrying out a search of a house in Manchester," Detective Chief Inspector Will Chatterton of the North West Counter-Terrorism Unit said in a statement.

"As part of this inquiry, officers are also providing support to the family and are speaking to them to understand how a man from the northwest came to be reportedly killed in Syria."

On Wednesday British police searched a home in the southeastern town of Crawley as part of an investigation into reports that a man named as 41-year-old Abdul Waheed Majid was responsible for a suicide attack in Syria.

He reportedly carried out a suicide truck bombing on February 6 as part of an attack by rebel fighters on the jail in the divided northern city of Aleppo. Rebel fighters are held in the prison.

European countries face a growing number of young people going to fight in Syria, where a civil war is raging involving President Bashar Assad's forces, rebels and Islamist fighters.

British officials say hundreds of Britons are currently believed to be fighting there.

A senior police officer warned last month that anyone returning to Britain from Syria risked being arrested.