Author: Kurt T

We will run out of bandages before they run out of bullets, which is how we at Shadows of Hope justify picking up rifles and doing what we do.

I had an opportunity to chat with a friend of mine, Red, who went to fight for the Kurdish Peshmerga, but instead ended up incarcerated.

Erwin Stran, a former Army MP and volunteer fighter with the Kurdish Peshmerga, sits down with SOFREP for an exclusive interview.

The Peshmerga have a very unique method of utilizing their snipers, probably most closely resembling that of the sharpshooters in World War I.

The proverbial gravy train had to get to the end of the line sometime, right? I’m talking about being a volunteer fighter in Kurdistan—an end of an era.

A volunteer should try to fill every facet of their role that is plausible. In other words, make yourself useful to the people you claim you want to aid.

Amnesty International has accused the Kurds in both Rojava and Bashur of human-rights violations.

Of course their tactics will continue to evolve even after the last Daesh bastions have fallen. They will shave their beards, throw on their civis, and melt back into the populace—a vanishing act all too familiar to them.

Basically, there are three handguns that you are most likely to see on a Peshmerga officer’s hip: a Glock 19, a Walther P1/P-38, or an HS2000.

A pistol is more of a status symbol than a matter of practicality to the Kurds. That’s not to say they don’t serve a purpose, just not the way they do in the West.

John was the kind of guy who wasn’t afraid to stand by his ideals even if the world was against him. I learned this about him very quickly from early on. We first met early in 2015, in Daquq at the Peshmerga’s 9th Brigade. He seemed eager to get into the action and mix it […]

It’s been quite some time since the “end” of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and the point where the last of the U.S. military’s forces egressed out of their respective AOs. But the remnants of their time here can still be found from time to time. In particular, a large footprint can be found deep in Kirkuk, at […]