Ex-Peshmerga fights radicalism in Netherlands

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands - After fighting for a year with the Peshmerga against ISIS on the frontlines near  Mosul Dam, Aza Nawzad returned to the Netherlands, his mother country of 18 years.

His goals were to get on with his life, work on a possible future, and continue the fight against ISIS.

For Nawzad, 25, the most difficult aspect of returning was that he had to sell his weapon, as he explained during an interview at his school in the Netherlands. For safety reasons, he prefers not to mention its exact location.

He found his AK-47 in the first hours of his duty as a Peshmerga, on ground retaken from ISIS.

“I know it was meant for me. I looked after it as my child, always cleaning it,” he said.

But to pay for his ticket home, he had to sell it to a friend.

“It is my history. I hope I can buy it back, one day.”

In August last year, Nawzad came to the Kurdistan region of Iraq to fight in a Peshmerga unit with his brothers, cousins and uncles. He posted videos and pictures of their fight on his Facebook page.  He used the social media platform to show his frustration about the lack ammunition and heavy weapons.

“You sit opposite ISIS. You’d like to shoot at them all day, but you cannot, and that eats at you. You have to count the bullets that you use. A battle can last for six hours, and you cannot afford the be without,” he said.

He spoke of the stench of the front, and about the 1,300 dead and 6,000 wounded Peshmerga. With sadness, he mentions one of his elder comrades who died after being hit by grenade shells. He said that during a battle you hardly ever know if you killed the enemy, because you do not really know who among your unit fired the deadly bullet.

Growing up in the Netherlands shaped him, he found at the front, and also transformed him in the eyes of others.

“They think you have been brought up with milk and biscuits, so that you cannot hold a shovel. While you might be even better at it than they are,” he said.

He said he had problems adapting to the local command structure, where his uncle, who is the general, made all the decisions.

“As a Dutchman, you have learned to think along with others. I have my own opinion, and perhaps you see things others do not. You want to make decisions, too.”

When he left in September, he had been promoted four times, but even as a sergeant he still had no voice.

“You are not in the front with the troops, the generals are. Sure, according to international standards, they should be at the back to have an overview. But we Kurds have always fought this way as guerrilla fighters. It’s all or nothing. That mentality is engrained in our army, and that’s how we can beat ISIS.”

The fact that he - like all civil servants in Kurdistan - often had to wait months for his salary and still only had seven salaries in a whole year, was not the reason to leave. When ISIS was pushed back, the front became quieter, and he was not needed so much anymore.

“I thought I could use my time in a better way. I left to get my diploma,” Nawzad said.
Diplomas are essential to make any career in Kurdistan, and that is what he hopes for. “My dream has always been to become a politician.”

Even though Dutch law means that fighting as a Dutch citizen for a foreign entity may lead to arrest, Nawzad had no problem returning. His school took him back so he could finish his final year of studying to become a social worker.

He decided to use the experience of the past year and started to research how young people become radicalized.

“I focus on the early stages, the first signals, to come up with suggestions on how a teacher can prevent radicalization in his classroom,” he said.

Nawzad said he wants to prevent radicalization because of “all those mothers that are breaking up because their children joining.”

He speaks from a personal experience: one of his friends in the Netherlands joined ISIS. “I know the way he thought. He said he would kill for 10,000 euros [$10,742]. He already had the aggression and the fantasies. I don’t even know if he is still alive.”

Although he focuses on teachers in his school, he thinks the results of his research might be for broader use, for instance by police patrolling the streets.

“If it works out, I will travel through the country to share the knowledge. So, I just move my frontline: I have given up my weapon to fight with my brain and do some good for society.”