ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – His first engagement against Islamic State (ISIS) fighters was the most important day of his life, a Canadian man fighting with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces has told Rudaw.
Dillon Hillier, a 26-year-old from a small town on the outskirts of Canada's capital city Ottawa, flew to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq on November 15.
“It was just the right thing to do,” the former corporal in the Canadian army said. “I spent $3,500 of my own money to come here.”
Contacts he had made online picked him up from the airport in Sulaimani and soon after he joined up with a Peshmerga unit. Ten days later he fought in his first battle.
On the morning of November 26 ISIS fighters overran a Peshmerga position about 20 kilometers west of Kirkuk. In Humvee armored vehicles, the fighters took control of the small hill above the village of al-Wared. According to a Peshmerga source, about 20 Kurdish soldiers were killed and up to five were missing after the engagement, possibly taken prisoner.
The village itself is notable mainly as the location of a holiday home of Ali Hassan Majid, Saddam Hussein's cousin, better known as Chemical Ali for his role in the 1988 gas attack on Halabja which killed 5,000 Kurds.
However, the hill offered an important vantage over the surrounding area. Second Lieutenant Ali Mohammed of the 103 Peshmerga unit explained its significance.
“All the area is the same – kinda flat – except for the hill,” which overlooks an oil refinery, a gas station and a power station, all under Kurdish control, he said.
The hill also overlooked the Maktab Khaled checkpoint, one of the few remaining routes over the Tigris River linking Kirkuk to Mosul and Tikrit, Mohamed said. Keeping the route open allows Arabs from the south to get important supplies from Kirkuk.
Retaking the hill was therefore a priority for the Peshmerga and the same afternoon Hillier's unit was briefed on the mission to retake the hill.
The preparations for battle were similar to the 15-step battle procedures Hillier had been trained to perform in the Canadian army. The unit cleaned and test fired their weapons, checked over their equipment and received orders.
After 3 pm Hillier and his unit crossed the bridge and engaged the enemy. Moving across open ground under fire, the few hundred meters seemed more like a kilometer.
They moved through the village quickly and pushed up the hill.
“One thing I found different was that they didn't clear the village house by house as they would have done in the Canadian armed forces,” Hilier said. “All the homes were mined and booby trapped, and they (ISIS) were in an elevated position with heavy weapons.”
The language barrier which had at times been challenging while they were waiting in the rear was less of an issue on the battlefield, where Hillier found the training of the Peshmerga matched his own.
“It didn't take long to take. We had their positions in an hour.”
Atop the hill, one of Hillier's comrades was shot in the face. Hillier dragged him to cover and helped to dress his wounds. His Go Pro video camera attached to his chest captured the scene.
Throughout the night there were small counter attacks and US forces launched a number of airstrikes against ISIS reserve positions. “You just heard them (the jets) and then you knew a big loud sound was coming.” As they ducked for cover, the explosions “lit up the sky pretty good.”
Leaving his boots and vest on, Hillier even managed to sleep a little. In the morning fresh troops arrived and his unit left at noon.
A photo taken by Hillier on the hill shows a smoking oil pipeline, which continued to burn for 48 hours.
Now resting in the rear, Hillier said he looked forward to returning to the frontlines.
Canadians have taken a keen interest in Hillier, who has been the subject of much Canadian media attention.
His father, a member Ontario's provincial parliament, and his mother told the press on November 21: “There are no words which can adequately describe how proud we are of our son Dillon, including his past service with the Canadian Armed Forces.”
The statement continued: “As a proud Canadian, he has always cherished and defended the freedoms we are all afforded in this great country.”
A group called the First North American Expeditionary Force, set up to screen and provide information to potential volunteers, has been inundated with requests, according to its founder.
Ian Bradbury, himself a former Canadian serviceman, said they are carefully vetting potential volunteers to ensure they have experience that will be of use to Peshmerga, and the right motivations. “We have to ensure that anyone we are supporting is on the full clean side,” he said.
Bradbury said the group was liaising closely with the Peshmerga and hoped to help a significant number of North Americans travel to the Kurdistan Region in the coming months.
“We were concerned about atrocities ISIS was committing in the region,” he said. Contrary to the positions of the Canadian and United States governments though, “We felt that there was a boots on the ground requirement there.”
