The State Department announced on Tuesday that a U.S. citizen was killed in Syria as the country was enveloped in sectarian violence. 

Hosam Saraya, an American-Syrian citizen from Oklahoma, appeared to be gunned down by Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government forces last week, family members and friends told ABC News. Soldiers executed Saraya, who belonged to the Druze religious minority targeted by Sunni Muslim Bedouins, alongside his brother, father, uncles, and cousins, on July 16 in southern Syria’s Tishreen Square, according to relatives. 

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“We offer condolences to the family on their loss and are providing consular assistance to them,” the State Department said in a statement that did not specify the individual’s identity. “We are greatly concerned when any U.S. citizen is harmed overseas, wherever they are. The United States calls for accountability in all cases where U.S. citizens are harmed abroad.”

The killing came amid conflict between the Bedouins and Druze in Syria. The Bedouins are Sunni Muslims accused of carrying out violent attacks targeting the Druze, an ethnoreligious minority group that also has a presence in neighboring Israel. 

Tishreen Square, where Saraya was said to have been executed, lies in Sweida, a Druze-majority city in southern Syria, where tensions have boiled over in recent weeks. The clashes have drawn interventions from Syrian government security forces as well as from Israel, which has accused Al-Sharaa’s government of being complicit in the Islamic “massacre” of the religious Druze minority — claims the Syrian president has denied. 

The U.S. became involved last week in brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Syria, seeking to ease tensions for the time being, with the July 18 agreement coming just two days after Saraya, an Oklahoma resident, was said to have been killed. 

A graduate of Oklahoma Christian University and Damascus University, Saraya had founded a virtual school for Syrian children administered from Sweida, according to NBC News. 

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In a statement Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on Al-Sharaa’s government in Damascus to prevent “violent jihadists” from “carrying out massacres.”

“They must hold accountable and bring to justice anyone guilty of atrocities, including those in their own ranks,” Rubio said.