Subscribe 

Rival warlords fight side by side against ISIS in Iraq

Najat Ali Salih is the top Kurdish officer on the Makhmour front about 30km south of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. His peshmerga fighters have suffered near-nightly suicide attacks and car bombs from Isis forces holed up in the nearby Arab city of Hawija for more than six months, most of that time without […]

Charles McDermid and Aso Mohammed write for Newsweek:

Najat Ali Salih is the top Kurdish officer on the Makhmour front about 30km south of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. His peshmerga fighters have suffered near-nightly suicide attacks and car bombs from Isis forces holed up in the nearby Arab city of Hawija for more than six months, most of that time without pay.

Seventeen peshmerga were paraded through the streets of Hawija in cages last month, and corpses dangled from the city’s welcome signs. But Salih, the flinty 45-year-old known affectionately as Ali Fateh, has an air of cool confidence. He gives no rank and eschews a uniform for the traditional garb of the mountain fighter. In equal parts Che Guevara and Don Corleone, Salih is a known as an eye-for-an-eye fighter. Salih says the terrorists aren’t attacking right now, just watching. To clear them out of the city he needs money, heavier guns and air support, and he is extremely unhappy about asking for it.