"Evil People"

"I manoeuvred the ground, and engaged the enemy as I was trained to do."
"I'm glad I didn't wear a helmet or armour, because a lot of these guys don't. It would have made keeping up with the front units difficult. [The Kurds are] amazing, brave fighters."
"I am unsure if my actions [coming to the aid of an injured Kurdish fighter] saved his life but I truly hope so."
"I'd imagine they [civilians] were hiding. There was a lot of lead flying about. Apparently it was their special forces that we fought ... and they didn't fight very hard."
"We slept in their tents, captured a Dushka [Soviet-era heavy machine-gun] and a tonne of ammo."
"This fight is for humanity. The Kurds do not fight just to protect Kurds, but all people."
Dillon Hillier, former corporal, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry

Dillon Hillier with two Peshmerga right after the battle at Tel al-Ward.  Photo courtesy / Ottawa Citizen

"It is important to follow the consular advice and avoid engaging in a combat activity abroad without the scope of our national Canadian Armed Forces and our national security agencies."
"The best way to fight terrorism is to support our national law enforcement or national security agencies and eventually get involved with them."
Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, Ottawa

"I think they're being sort of bamboozled by the thought of going out there and being a hero and being like the Spanish Brigade. Discipline is negligible in these militias. It's a case of advancing to contact and then when you make contact with them you just fight, kill as many guys until one side or the other withdraws."
"They're (Islamic State terrorists) going to be looking for anyone who is in the coalition, to get them in the orange jumpsuits and start making demands. It's going to put everyone in a terrible quandary."
"The young guys, I don't think they realize that, because they think it's all gung ho. I think it's immaturity. I think it's boredom."
Alan Bell, former British SAS, president Globe Risk International

Son of an Ontario MLA in the provincial legislator, Dillon Hillier, 26, now has his first battle fighting alongside the Syrian Kurdish Peshmerga as a volunteer member of the 1st North American Expeditionary Force against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant under his belt of experience in Iraq. Arrived in Iraq in November for the express purpose of using his previous Canadian military training to aid and support the Kurds in their existential conflict against the Islamic State jihadists, he writes now of the November 26 battle.

The conflict took place on a fortified hill, with Dillon Hillier on the front lines where he planned to be. The hill in Tel al-Ward was held by ISIL jihadis, inside bunkers placed at its peak. During the firefight that ensued as the Peshmerga advanced on the hill one of the Kurds beside Hillier was shot: "I dragged him to cover", he said, applying a pressure bandage until the wounded fighter could be medically cared for.

The battle was monumental as an occurrence in his life, giving him the feeling that he had managed to be involved in something extremely important: "Because I helped liberate a town from evil people", he explained. The following day he returned with others to a Kurdish base after liberating Tel al-Ward from Islamic State where "dozens" of jihadis met their end according to general Mohamed Haji Qadir of the Peshmerga forces.

The flood of eager volunteers from among the ranks of Europe's and North America's Islamic youth eager to join jihad as a duty they are beholden to reflecting their Muslim heritage, is now being  counter-matched, albeit in far lesser numbers by inspired young Westerners with military combat experience who feel that their own countries are not being involved in a situation matching barbaric jihadis against helpless civilians with the lives of ethnic minorities hanging in the balance.

Good intentions on the part of volunteer Western fighters to protect civilians and targeted religious and ethnic groups from the lethal viciousness of Islamist fanatics.