ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—While standing guard at a remote outpost south of Kirkuk last week, Khdir Mohammed, 23, and his fellow Peshmerga were attacked by Islamic State (ISIS) militants in the middle of the night. He was hit by six bullets but he survived and is eager to report back to duty as soon as he has fully recovered.
“It was 1:15 in the morning when 6-7 ISIS militants launched a surprise attack on us and killed three of my fellow Peshmerga and I was wounded by six bullets,” Mohammed told Rudaw. “We were four Peshmerga at our outpost and I was the only one who survived,”
Mohammed a Peshmerga of four years and the father of two said that the militants managed to sneak up on him and his friends by walking through a small river and thick bushes.
They attacked with mortars and assault rifles.
The four Peshmerga soldiers were shocked by the sudden appearance of the ISIS militants at their doorstep fully dressed in black uniform.
“On the night of the attack we were on duty when ISIS militants covered in black attacked us and both of my hands were hit by bullets and I fell to the floor,” Mohammed recalled. “I couldn’t fire anymore and I managed to crawl away and when they saw I was moving they fired another three bullets at me.”
“I was able to take shelter among the trees,” he added.
Mohammed’s three other friends were killed in the attack.
The frontline south and west of Kirkuk has been the site of some of the most intense battles between ISIS militants and the Kurdish Peshmerga.
Looking at his wounds later on Mohammed saw that the bullets had gone right through his hands and arm.
“I survived with the grace of God,” he recalled his lucky escape, wounded and bleeding through thick bushes. “I had lost all hope and I was sure that I will die. But then I slowly crawled away and started to believe that I might make it through this time,”
Lying on his recovery bed at home, Mohammed said he does not know if any of the militants who attacked them that night were killed.
Mohammed and his fellow Peshmerga were guarding a small village south of the town of Daquq on the main highway to Baghdad.
“They were firing at us, they were all over the place,” he said of the moment the militants attacked his post.
Mohammed has little memory of his escape and how he made it to the next Peshmerga outpost. “The only thing on my mind was my family and death.”
Mohammed’s family have a long history of serving in the Peshmerga forces.
Three of Mohammed’s own uncles have been fighting ISIS in the last two years.
“This the spirit of the Peshmerga,” Saeed Mustafa, one of his Peshmerga uncles serving on the Tuz Khurmatu front told Rudaw. “Being injured or killed will not stop us.”
“We will always be prepared and never give up,” he added. Mustafa’s frontline is not far from where his nephew Mohammed was wounded in the ISIS attack.
Mustafa said he always believed in Mohammed’s strength and knew that he would make it.
Despite his eagerness to recover and rejoin the battle, Mohammed’s arms were so badly hit that he has lost movement and has been told by his doctors that he may have to seek better medical treatment outsider the country.
The Kurdish government has appealed to its coalition partners and international community to take wounded Peshmerga like Mohammed for treatment abroad as it is grappling with a severe financial crisis.
Mohammed is being treated at Chami Rezan hospital in Sulaimani city where he visits for regular followups.
“One of his arms which the bullet hit the muscles needs to be treated abroad,” Mustafa said.
His uncle revealed that representatives from Peshmerga Ministry have visited Mohammed and reassured him they will do their best to help him with his case.
“I am doing fine, I just don’t know when I will be back to the battlefield,” said Mohammed, keeping his spirit high while consumed with sorrow for his friends who died at the outpost that night.
