SHINGAL, Kurdistan Region - The thud of exploding mortar fire. The thunder of machine guns and RPGs. This is life in the contested city of Shingal.
Holed up in a shelter at the middle of it all is Peshmerga commander Khalaf Ganjo. He hears the mayhem outside and doesn’t flinch. To him, it is but a prelude to the fighting to come.
“We are Peshmerga. We are not nervous,” Ganjo said. “It is like we are waiting for a party.”
Any nerves that might be hiding behind the commander’s stern, brown eyes are certainly justified.
The city of Shingal has been held by ISIS for more than a year. At the center of the supply route from Raqqa, in Syria, to Mosul, it is one of the most strategically important cities for the terrorists. Many Kurdish fighters expect the toughest battle yet with the jihadists.
The Peshmerga are in a holding pattern, waiting on the order to attack. With only 1 km separating the enemies, the Peshmerga keep the jihadists at bay with sniper, mortar and machine gun fire, calling in US-coalition airstrikes when the militants advance.
Although ISIS has been weakened from recent Peshmerga offensives, most notably near Kirkuk and Makhmour, Ganjo knows first-hand the wrath of the jihadists. He and his family have the scars to prove it.
When ISIS besieged the city of Mosul in June 2014, the commander’s daughter was shot. He fled with his wife and seven children 60 km north to the city of Zumar. His daughter and the rest of the family made it out alive, but ISIS followed.
The militants captured Zumar, and during the Peshmerga’s fight to take it back, Ganjo was shot in the arm and leg. There is still shrapnel lodged in the back of his head.
“I said before I would never kill a chicken, but with these hands, I have killed 40-50 Daesh [terrorists],” Ganjo said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. “My hands are soaked with Daesh blood.
“I have no choice. If I don’t kill them, they will kill me.”
The Peshmerga succeeded in driving ISIS from Zumar, but Ganjo did not return home. He has been away for a year and a half, and he will not return, he said, until the terrorists have been swept from his country.
“My family is always crying because I am on the frontline,” said Ganjo, who wears a picture of iconic Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani on the sleeve of his uniform.
Inside his barracks, where a dozen fighters surround him as he speaks, Ganjo has another family.
“All of his men consider him the father,” said 29-year-old Khaled Suliman Khalo, who recently volunteered with the Peshmerga to fight ISIS.
From resilience in battle to his steady hand with a sniper rifle, Khalo said, the commander exemplifies the model fighter. It is not just Ganjo’s fighting prowess, however, that his men admire. It is his reason for fighting.
“Kurdistan is like a garden,” Ganjo said. “All people of all religions are welcome to come here and grow.”
Ganjo, a Muslim, said he realizes what ISIS is doing to his religion. The terror group justifies genocide, slavery, rape and torture by distorting the Quran and claiming its ways are that of pure Islam.
“I don’t like my religion right now because of Daesh,” Ganjo said. “All religions pray to God. God doesn’t want us to kill people. He wants us to be good.”
The blast of mortars echoes through the valley, bringing the fighters’ attention back to the imminent battle outside. A few Peshmerga burst out of the shelter, buzzing radios dangling from their belts.
Unperturbed by the rumble, Ganjo continues as if the battle was already over.
“We will not take anything from the city,” he said. “We are not here to steal. We are here to defeat Daesh.”
He gestures toward Mount Shingal, where thousands of Yezidis who fled the city last year live in ramshackle huts with barely enough to get by.
“We are here to give them their homes back,” Ganjo said.
After accomplishing this, the commander said, he will leave the Peshmerga, return to his family and attend university. He aspires to work for the United Nations.
“I want to help poor people everywhere, of every religion,” he said.
A few minutes go by, and the commander receives a phone call. He rises, ordering the rest of his men to take their positions on the front. They grab their rifles and extra ammunition and pile into pickup trucks that take them to the battle.
The commander hangs up the phone. He adjusts his body armor and straps on his boots, getting ready for the party.
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