What draws foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria?
In the small, northern Iraqi town of Tel Eskof, a white pick-up truck rolled down the dirt road towards a nearby frontline, carrying part of a new medical unit. The men in the truck waved as a tall soldier standing at the roadside, clad in combat gear and dark Ray-Bans, bellowed in an unmistakable southern […]Norma Costello writes for Al Jazeera:
In the small, northern Iraqi town of Tel Eskof, a white pick-up truck rolled down the dirt road towards a nearby frontline, carrying part of a new medical unit.
The men in the truck waved as a tall soldier standing at the roadside, clad in combat gear and dark Ray-Bans, bellowed in an unmistakable southern US drawl: "Welcome to Tel Eskof, y'all!"
Spanning various ages and nationalities, the fighters here comprise part of a small yet well-known contingent of foreign volunteers who left their homes thousands of kilometres away to help the Kurds battle the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS).
"They come to help us. It's good that they're here, but I don't know why they would leave their homes for this," Ahmed, a soldier with the Kurdish Peshmerga, told Al Jazeera in hushed tones.
