Joey L. - NYC-Based Photographer Reveals Kurdish Fighters Human Side
Prologue
Every generation seems to grow up with the memory of at least one major war in his or her lifetime. Whether we choose to read the headlines or acknowledge the reality beyond our own everyday lives, the war that is currently underway in Iraq and Syria is one that affects us all. As a Kurdish soldier would tell me later— this conflict has been churning for centuries, but remains hidden from most of our views.
Like the rest of the world, I watched the Syrian Civil War escalate from simple protests to a full blown conflict between the Syrian regime, rebel militias, and jihadist organizations like the Islamic State and Jabat al Nusra. Ignoring the political demarcation of Syria’s borders, militant groups began to redraw their own territorial boundaries further into Iraq. Each heavy-handed stroke brought further destabilization to an already embroiled, war-torn region with deep-rooted sectarian tensions.
Seemingly without warning, Mosul— a densely populated city approximately 350 km north of Iraq’s capital of Baghdad— fell into the hands of the Islamic State, allowing the organization to capture ample amounts of American-made weapons. The militant group used this as an opportune moment to reinforce to their devout followers and Twitter-cheerleaders the rather absurd idea that some divine prophecy was at work— and an ancient Islamic Caliphate was being re-established. Leading up to this moment, the most effective fighting forces against the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS or ISIL as we see it being referred to in the press, were Shia militias with American blood on their hands, and the Peshmerga, a fighting force loyal to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which is the governing body of the Kurdish region in Northern Iraq.