Volunteering with the "Lions of Rojava"

I'm sorry, but I can only help with text translations. Let me know how I can assist you with that.The war in the Middle East is not only attracting those who are joining the Islamic State (IS or Daash) by the thousands. The media have also reported on those coming from the West and joining the Kurds to help them in the fight against IS. Jack Murphy, SPARTANAT author and Managing Editor at SOFREP, traveled to the Kurdish territories of Syria and met with volunteers from the West who are with the YPG. Here is his report: I hear the shots of a 12.7mm all day long echoing through the abandoned buildings until the afternoon. Shot after shot echoes from an empty warehouse next to the apartment building where I am staying with members of the YPG. This arouses my curiosity quite a bit… It seems there is no YPJ or YPG sniper unit here, because that's exactly where I am right now. We are where the border between Syria and Iraq used to run. Nowadays, this border is irrelevant. It is now part of Rojava, since the YPG recaptured Rabbia from the Islamic State months ago. I wander through what was once probably a luxury apartment building, through many other ruins, and towards an abandoned industrial park. I get an eerie feeling as if I had entered some kind of post-apocalyptic world. When I reach the shooters, seven of them are busy firing locally made 12.7mm sniper rifles. They were built from DShK barrels and trigger groups produced in Rojava's weapon workshops. I walk up to the group and start shaking hands. One of them was almost two meters tall, built like a wardrobe. When I shake his hand, he just grunts something and moves away. He is clearly trying to hide what was quite visible - he is a European fighter who has voluntarily joined the Kurds to fight with them. Another European-looking fighter follows him, whom I could not greet at all. Later I was told that the two were speaking in a language that sounded somehow Scandinavian. What puzzled me was that they spent the morning and afternoon firing high-caliber sniper rifles at the side wall of a warehouse 50 meters away. Except for a few shots to zero in the scope, there is no point in practicing shooting at a target 50 meters away. With a 12.7mm rifle, you can't miss at that distance. Either what was going on was a total clown show – or they were testing the reliability of the weapons and scopes. Another member of the group comes to me, an English-speaking Kurd with a mole on his cheek near his eye, and shoulder-length black hair. When he sees my camera, the first thing he says to me is, "No photos." I agree, and he tells me immediately that he and his team are a "special unit". I had to struggle to remain professional and not laugh. Then he asks me to leave, to which I also agree. The Kurd escorts me away, asking me who I am and if I have met Jordan yet, another foreign volunteer with the YPG. At that time, I had not met him yet. But I would soon... Foreign Fighters of Rojava As I arrive at the compound, the training facility, I climb to the fourth floor of one of the buildings. There, I was told, I might meet American and other non-native fighters. After knocking on a few doors, I reached the three foreigners I was looking for. They were very polite and welcomed me to join them. I was offered those ultralight cigarettes, which are as ubiquitous in Rojava as the AK-47. The joke was that we would all die of lung cancer before the Islamic State even had a chance to shoot us. The three foreign fighters all come from Western countries and claim to have military experience. I agreed not to take photos of them or disclose their identities. This was a serious request that I complied with, as the Islamic State often puts bounties on certain individuals. There is a list of 17 names from the YPG that the IS prefers to have killed. A YPG commander I met in Rojava survived an assassination attempt there. The three foreign fighters tell me some of their stories. One tried to go to Ukraine to fight before joining the YPG. He and another came to Rojava the same way I did, through the underground railroad. The third fighter arrived here through Turkey and had a harrowing experience. As it turned out, the IS also buys foreigners who try to come to Rojava to join the fight. The foreign fighter I will call "Sam" was on a bus trying to cross the border between Turkey and Syria to contact the YPG. As the bus drove, one of the passengers suddenly pointed to a checkpoint the bus was approaching. Sam immediately found this suspicious. As the bus approached the checkpoint, he could see a group of men waiting for him. They were wearing uniforms, but their vehicles were civilian – neither Turkish military nor police. Sam wisely decided to have the bus driver stop and drop him off before the checkpoint. In case of trouble, a YPG contact could meet him elsewhere and guide him in the right direction. A YPG commander told me that the IS regularly operates in this way and sees it as a way to take more western, especially American hostages. The commander communicates repeatedly via radio or mobile phone with the IS when Kurds take a dead fighter. The Islamic State put a bounty on the commander's head, so he asked them on the phone what they would do with him if they were able to capture him. Would they behead him, he wanted to know, and the IS leader said, "Probably, but not right away." First, they would take him to a place with a good internet connection, where he would be forced to attract more western volunteers, who could then be caught by the IS at the border. "Ah, okay," the YPG commander said on the phone to the IS commander. "What are your guys doing in Palestine? I hope they die well." One only has to think of the beheading videos the IS has made of Western journalists and aid workers so far. With more Westerners in this trap, they could take even more hostages. The YPG commander I talked to had no idea if any Americans had been captured using this trick or how many, if any. The Lions of Rojava "I'm sorry, I can't tell you more until your security clearance is complete," says a former US Marine I meet in front of a PKK building. He has a bandana and sunglasses on, and eventually tells me quite a bit... somehow. That's the problem with the "Lions of Rojava," as they call themselves on Facebook. When you meet them, the non-native fighters maintain OPSEC and PERSEC. They don't want to talk about their missions or tasks (at least not at first), nor be photographed. There are good reasons for this. However, they then post pictures and other sensitive information on Facebook. The figurehead of the "Lions of Rojava" is Jordan Matson. When I first see Jordan and the ex-Marine, they think I'm here to fight or help with training. I quickly have to explain that I am writing for SOFREP, and that I will soon be on my way home. Luckily, one of the Brits present there, whose path I had crossed in the past, recognizes me, so no one thinks I have any ulterior motives for being there. While the former Marine was a bit overeager, most of the "Lions of Rojava" seemed to have their hearts and minds in the right place. They traveled to Rojava to fight against Daash – as the Islamic State is also called. And although they do not represent the same socialist ideology as the PKK, they do sympathize with their struggle for freedom. Jordan believes in something that I and many other US Army veterans can easily relate to: If the IS wins the war, it means that everything our friends and comrades died for is lost. If Daash wins, then everything I did with my guys in Tal Afar and Mosul was meaningless. The non-native fighters may not be socialists, but they have their own ideology. As for Daash and the fight for freedom, the goals of the volunteers and the PKK align. Contrary to what is often reported in the press, the foreign fighters with the PKK are not mercenaries. It is the belief in the cause that leads them to travel to Rojava and join the fight. They also explained to me that they do not receive any payment. So they are volunteers in the strictest sense of the word. PKK fighters usually receive about $250 per month, but the foreign fighters do not even accept this meager amount. I also met two Brits who want to join the fight. Both seem like good men and want to pass on their training and combat experience to the PKK fighters. Although they were somewhat frustrated by how complicated everything was, they also understood that patience is a virtue and that it takes time to understand the culture in which they are now operating well enough to act effectively. The Lions of Rojava said that their goal is to establish a unit comprised solely of English-speaking Western fighters. This would make it much easier to lead effectively, rather than having individuals or small groups scattered among the Kurdish camps, where hardly anyone speaks English and where they essentially lead an outsider existence. Meanwhile, Jordan recruits more Western fighters for the PKK via the Facebook page of the "Lions of Rojava." I hardly need to mention that I initially imagined a bunch of burnt-out losers and was quite surprised to find good men who also take the time to familiarize themselves with the language and culture of their hosts. They understand that their mission has more to do with Lawrence of Arabia than with Rambo. But the Lions also have their challenges. Some of them dress as if they were OPFOR actors in an exercise in North Carolina. Allegedly, there was even a volunteer who, upon arrival, demanded to speak to the general at his command post and asked for "beer and hookers." Such statements can quickly become rough in a culture that values equality and respect. Foreigners voluntarily participating in a national liberation struggle somewhere in the world is nothing new. These strangers are drawn to the war zones for reasons as diverse as their personal backgrounds. An American foreign fighter I met on the border between Kurdistan and Rojava told me he just wanted to go on another mission before he was too old. He was about to turn 70. Another volunteer, who was told to me but whom I never met, was previously a manager of a laser tag arena before he joined the YPG. One can imagine that this background gave rise to more than enough jokes, but according to his very tough YPG commander, whom I met, this foreign fighter was good and ready to enter combat. Mercenaries? One of the biggest weaknesses of the Lions of Rojava (from my point of view) is that they do not do their public relations properly. They play the double-edged game of social media, needing it to recruit more volunteers for the YPG, but are not aware of the further consequences it can have. One of them is that it also attracts the crazies. Another would be that they provide the mainstream media with images that they blow through the ether to immediately stigmatize the people in those images as "mercenaries." All foreign fighters I met asked me not to be photographed or to publish any further information about them that could identify them. I agreed, as I know that by identifying them, I would be painting a target on their backs. A few days later, I had already left the YPG base, I was sitting in a refugee camp in Dohuk. The Yazidi refugees had turned on the television, an Arabic news channel was on. And the headlines were about the western "mercenaries" fighting with the YPG. The story mentioned names and pictures of the British volunteers I had just met a day before. So much for confidentiality. The Lions of Rojava's Facebook page had posted their photos. That was probably the starting point from which the reporters managed to assign images to individual Facebook pages and thus identify the men. As for whether these men are "mercenaries," my clear answer is "No." Being a mercenary implies fighting for one side solely for money, acting without any ideological motivation. The foreign fighters I met want to help the Kurds in their struggle for freedom and against an enemy they consider truly evil with full dedication. The volunteers I encountered were truly there voluntarily; besides room and board, they do not receive any payment. The Party's Desires The Western volunteers are not the first foreigners to be integrated into the ranks of the Kurdish forces. The first foreigners to be accepted by the PKK, YPG, and YPJ fighters in Rojava were a few hundred Turkish communists. Initially, they were not trusted, but in the end, they not only gained the Kurds' trust but also their admiration. Nearly all of the Turkish fighters are now dead. The war devours its children faster than they can be replaced. A private conversation with one of the Kurds was quite enlightening when it came to the matter of non-native fighters. While they would like to create an English-speaking unit, the YPG has very different plans. They are still keeping the foreigners in the headquarters areas or in relatively safe sections of the front, where it is unlikely they will be attacked. While the Lions of Rojava think they are vetting newcomers for security, they are also being vetted by the YPG. They are held back until the YPG knows who it can trust. When the wheat is separated from the chaff, the foreigners will be deployed in three-man teams with Kurdish units. The foreigners want to bring their Western combat training and experience to the Kurds. At the same time, it is important to the Kurds to teach the foreigners their culture and ideology. The Kurds would never impose their ideology on anyone, but as good socialists, they feel that the foreigners might also come to meet them halfway and join their ideological cause. The YPG is not just about combat. The Kurds know that the foreigners are very different and sense that everyone is finding their own way when it comes to finding themselves and the movement. Ultimately, when looking at the contribution of the volunteers, their efforts are welcome but ultimately insignificant. And I don't say that to belittle or disparage the voluntary fighters. They make a sacrifice by traveling to Rojava and devoting their lives to the cause of freedom. Ultimately, the war will be won by the people of Rojava. The highest sacrifice has already been made by thousands of Kurds who have given their all in the face of the army of darkness, the Islamic State. It is important to keep in mind that the real heroes of Rojava are the YPG and YPJ fighters. The foreign volunteers have to work their way up. Their challenge is to bring their training and experience into Kurdish units already in combat and – in some cases – suffering from exhaustion. To be successful, the foreigners must learn the Kurdish language and culture. Then they must use this culture as a conduit to impart their military knowledge. When this happens, the Kurdish fighters will become a little more like them. But what the foreigners do not yet understand is that the Kurds will use their military training as an opportunity to teach them something about themselves. As the military and social exchange takes place, the foreigners themselves will become more and more Kurdish. JACK MURPHY  is Managing Editor at SOFREP.COM. He served in the 5th Special Forces Group and was deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other places. In 2010, he left the US Army. He is studying political science at Columbia University. Murphy is the author of "Reflexive Fire," "Target Deck," the PROMIS series, and has published many articles on weapons, tactics, special operations, terrorism, and counter-terrorism.