American Who Joined ISIS Killed in Syria Gunfight, Relative Says it Was 'His Destiny'

One less terrorist.

Homegrown jihadist Douglas McAuthur McCain, who once lived for hip hop and hoops, died for pure hatred while fighting in Syria alongside ISIS militants.

The Midwestern native left home earlier this year to join the virulently anti-American Islamic State — and perished in a firefight last weekend just days after his fellow terrorists released a video of the beheading of a U.S. journalist.

“It was his destiny,” a close relative told the Daily News after McCain was exposed Tuesday as a jihadist carrying a U.S. passport and $800 cash when he was killed.

The man called himself “Duale ThaslaveofAllah” on Facebook. And he posted on Twitter, “It’s Islam over everything.”

The 33-year-old McCain, was one of three foreign-born jihadists, including a Tunisian and an Egyptian, killed in the gunfight in the northern Syria city of Marea. The battle erupted after the ISIS radicals attempted a sneak attack on a group of Free Syrian Army fighters, the White House said Tuesday night.

McCain is one of dozens of Americans to join the terrorist war against their homeland, U.S. officials said.

His family was reeling but not surprised to learn of the Islamic convert’s violent death.

A close relative told The News that McCain’s kin was aware of his trip to the volatile region but they were kept in the dark about his purpose.

 “The reason for the trip was hidden from me,” the family member said. “I didn’t think anything of it. Allah was with him. He’s been overseas before, so I figured he would be back like before.”

McCain left behind a job as a caregiver to special needs patients. And he had a daughter just short of her first birthday, relatives told the Star Tribune in Minneapolis.

His sister Delecia, in an emotional Facebook post, said the revelations about her big brother were “absolutely unreal” and endlessly puzzling.

 “I really don’t understand why and how and I have no words, I never thought this will be the way we say goodbye,” she wrote.

 “You where (sic) my oldest brother, my biggest headache, the one I argue with the most, my words when I needed you to be,” she wrote. “I can hear you now saying ‘Lele guess what, I’m awesome’ and that big brother you are.”

McCain was born in Illinois, raised in Minnesota and moved west to soak up the California sun. McCain loved basketball and rapper Rick Ross, and settled easily into his left coast lifestyle.

The bearded McCain — who was identified on the battlefield by his his cash, ID and a tattoo on the right side of his neck — attended San Diego City College, a school spokesman confirmed.

He declined to provide any additional information about the aspiring rapper who went to high school in Minnesota.

McCain, in a Twitter post, said he started down his deadly path about a decade ago.

 “I reverted to Islam 10 years ago and I must say In sha Allah I will never look back the best thing that ever happen to me,” he wrote.

There were other social media clues: In January 2013, McCain replaced his Facebook profile picture with one of Troy Kastigar — a fellow Islamic convert who died in Somalia in 2009 after joining an extremist group.

The two attended Robbinsdale Cooper High School in a suburb of Minneapolis.

And his Twitter page included a simple message: “It’s Islam over everything.”

The State Department, after reaching out to his relatives, issued a statement confirming his death in Syria and urging others not to follow in his radical footsteps.

 “We continue to use every tool we possess to disrupt and dissuade individuals from traveling abroad for violent jihad and to track and engage those who return,” the statement said.

Word of McCain’s death came as White House officials confirmed President Obama authorized reconnaissance missions over Syria. The order is widely seen as a precursor to air strikes against ISIS targets.

McCain was fighting for the same ruthless terrorist group that beheaded James Foley — and just demanded $6.6 million for the release of another innocent American hostage.

The 26-year-old American woman was grabbed last year while on a humanitarian mission in Syria, making her the third known U.S. captive seized by ISIS.

The woman’s family requested that her identity remain secret as they attempt to secure her safe release. In addition to the ransom, the terrorists demanded the U.S. release prisoner Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist serving 86 years for her attempt to kill two Americans in Afghanistan.

Known as Lady Al Qaeda, Siddiqui was arrested in 2008 while carrying handwritten notes mentioning a “mass casualty attack” along with a list of potential terror targets like the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty.

ISIS has already threatened to make American reporter Steven Sotloff its next victim. The 31-year-old, whose work has appeared in TIME magazine, was kidnapped in Syria last year.

The mom of Peter Curtis, an American journalist released this past weekend by an Al Qaeda-affiliated group in Syria, said her son was enjoying his long-denied freedom. He was reunited with his mother, Nancy Curtis, Tuesday at Boston’s Logan International Airport after first flying to Newark from Tel Aviv.

“I have been so touched and moved, beyond all words, by the people who have come up to me today — strangers on the airplane, the flight attendants and, most of all, my family to say welcome home,” Curtis said in a statement.

His mother added that she was “overwhelmed with relief that this day has come and my son is standing beside me.”

Curtis was kept in such complete isolation after his October 2012 abduction that he was completely unaware of President Obama’s re-election.

NBC News aired footage of the shootout where McCain died, although it did not include his death at the hands of the free Syrian Army.

The American citizen’s past showed no indication of his future inclinations — just minor arrests for drug possession, disorderly conduct and driving with a revoked license.