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Kurdistan
Jean Devol (left), Emre Edwards (center), and Vincent Mark Alexander (right) appearing on the video footage published by the Kurdistan Region Security Council on May 4, 2022. Graphic: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Kurdistan Region’s Security Council on Wednesday said that the Peshmerga forces had “rescued” three foreign nationals from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Sinjar (Shingal), adding they had been “deceived” by the group into fighting the “allies of their country”.
The 14 minute video published by the Kurdistan Region’s Counter Terrorism units on Facebook showed recorded interviews with American nationals Vincent Mark Alexander and Jean Devol, and British national Emre Edwards, who all claim to have been rescued by the Peshmerga forces from Sinjar.
“As soon as you get there, there is no leaving, you are stuck there until your contract ends and even if your contract ends, they say it’s 8 months, that’s also a lie,” Alexander said in the recorded interview referring to the Shingal Resistance Units (YBS) and the PKK, adding that they had initially signed up to fight the Islamic State (ISIS), but soon realized there were no ISIS militants to fight in the area.
“The Peshmerga helped us escape, me and two other of my friends, because we did not sign up to be terrorists of our country, we did not sign up to fight American allies,” Alexander said, adding that the claims they had been told were “manipulation” and “lies”, and that they had been threatened with execution if they decided to leave.
All three individuals appear to be sat on a leather chair with a white background with no further information about the circumstances of the how the interview was conducted.
The Kurdish authorities have not publicly disclosed any information about how these three foreign nationals were rescued, however, Rudaw understands that the operation took place last week following intel received by the Peshmerga forces and were “rescued” from one of the bases they had been kept in.
The three foreign nationals defined the circumstances they had been through during their time in the ranks of the group.
“You are put on the frontlines to completely be the first one to die so they don’t lose their own people,” Devol said.
However, the three foreign nationals are the not the first foreigners to join the PKK or PKK affiliated groups.
“Foreigners began joining Kurdish troops as early as 2013, and their ranks have since swelled to between 1,500 and 2,000 fighters, each rarely staying longer than six months. Some have gone home and returned to fight again, others came ‘just for a photo’ before departing quickly. Still others haven’t escaped with their lives,” France 24 reported back in 2018.
The Kurdistan Region Security Council said that the three foreign nationals had been handed over to their countries’ consulates.
Rudaw English reached out to the US Department of State and the UK Foreign Office for comment on the cases of the three foreign nationals, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
The YBS is a mostly Yazidi militia set up by a number of PKK fighters in 2014 according to a number of interview by the top PKK leaderships. The militia played a critical role in fighting ISIS, but following the routing of terror group from Sinjar, Turkey has conducted airstrikes and has killed some of the top leaders of the group.
Turkey considers the YBS an offshoot of the PKK and carries out regular attacks against the group.
The YBS seized control over parts of Sinjar following the fall of ISIS, a move that has on several occasions been criticized by both the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi government.
The Iraqi army has repeatedly attempted to retake Sinjar from the YBS with limited success. On April 18, armed clashes erupted between the Iraqi army and the Yazidi force, after the latter opened fire on an army convoy that did not stop at a checkpoint.
The Lalish PMF commander on Tuesday told Rudaw’s Nwenar Fatih that the YBS’s affiliation with the PKK is detrimental to their legitimacy and that the affiliation is the reason behind Turkey’s bombardment of their forces.
“They must escape that ideology,” Khal Ali said. “It is a negative point and a delusion that the YBS has created for themselves.”
Tensions erupted when the Iraqi Army attempted to gain control of the key sub-districts of Khanasor and Sinune from the YBS, leading to the deaths of an Iraqi soldier and a YBS fighter.
According to the 2020 Shingal agreement between the Iraqi government and the KRG, security for the troubled region is Baghdad's responsibility. The federal government is to establish a new armed force recruited from the local population and expel all militias, although the agreement has been rejected by the PKK and its proxies, and criticized by members of the Yazidi community for their lack of involvement in the agreement.
Additional reporting by Julian Bechocha
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