DUHOK, Iraq — Saint Michael, the archangel of battle, is tattooed across the back of a US army veteran who recently returned to Iraq and joined a Christian militia fighting the self-proclaimed Islamic State group. Brett, 28, who was deployed to Iraq in 2006, said, “It's very different,” when asked how the experiences compared. “Here I'm fighting for a people and for a faith, and the enemy is much bigger and more brutal.” Thousands of foreigners have flocked to Iraq and Syria in the past two years, mostly to join IS, but a handful of idealistic Westerners are enlisting as well, citing frustration their governments are not doing more to combat the militants or prevent the suffering of innocents. The militia they joined is called Dwekh Nawsha — meaning self-sacrifice in the ancient Aramaic language. A map on the wall in the office of the Assyrian political party affiliated with Dwekh Nawsha marks the Christian towns in northern Iraq, fanning out around the city of Mosul. The majority are now under control of IS, which overran Mosul last summer and issued am ultimatum to Christians: pay a tax, convert to Islam, or die by the sword. Most fled. Dwekh Nawsha operates alongside Kurdish peshmerga forces to protect Christian villages on the frontline in Nineveh province. “These are some of the only towns in Nineveh where church bells ring. In every other town the bells have gone silent, and that's unacceptable,” said Brett, who has “The King of Nineveh” written in Arabic on the front of his army vest. Brett, who like other foreign volunteers withheld his last name out of concern for his family's safety, is the only one to have engaged in fighting so far. The others, who arrived just last week, were turned back from the frontline on Friday by Kurdish security services who said they needed official authorization. Tim shut down his construction business in Britain last year, sold his house and bought two plane tickets to Iraq: One for himself and another for a 44-year-old American software engineer he met through the Internet. The men joined up at Dubai airport, flew to the Kurdish city of Suleimaniyah and took a taxi to Duhok, where they arrived last week. “I'm here to make a difference and hopefully put a stop to some atrocities,” said 38-year-old Tim, who previously worked in the prison service. “I'm just an average guy from England really.” Scott, the software engineer, served in the US Army in the 1990s, but lately spent most of his time in front of a computer screen in North Carolina. He was mesmerized by images of IS militants hounding Iraq's Yazidi minority and became fixated on the struggle for the Syrian border town of Kobane — the target of a relentless campaign by the militants, who were held off by the lightly armed Kurdish YPG militia, backed by US air strikes. Scott had planned to join the YPG, which has drawn a flurry of foreign recruits, but changed his mind four days before heading to the Middle East after growing suspicious of the group's ties to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). He and the other volunteers worried they would not be allowed home if they were associated with the PKK, which the United States and Europe consider a terrorist organization. They also said they disliked the group's leftist ideology. The only foreign woman in Dwekh Nawsha's ranks said she had been inspired by the role of women in the YPG, but identified more closely with the “traditional” values of the Christian militia. Wearing a baseball cap over her balaclava, she said deviant ideology was at the root of many conflicts and had to be contained. All the volunteers said they were prepared to stay in Iraq indefinitely. “Everyone dies,” said Brett, asked about the prospect of being killed. — Reuters
