Canadian veteran’s fight with Kurds against ISIL ‘greatest day’ of his life
In his first battle serving on the front lines against ISIL, Dillon Hillier engaged the enemy in a firefight, helped liberate a town, and almost certainly saved a fellow fighter’s life. It was, he said later, the greatest day of his life.
Hillier, who used to be a corporal in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, is a volunteer with the 1st North American Expeditionary Force, a private organization that is providing aid to anyone who wants to help the Kurds in their fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as ISIS or simply Islamic State. Hillier has been with the Kurds in northern Iraq since late November.
In the Nov. 26 battle, Hillier had one main objective when he reached the town of Tel al-Ward. It was to take the hill. He was with the Kurdish Peshmerga, and though he cannot speak their language, he fought alongside them.
The hill was fortified, according to Hillier, who disclosed information about his experience from an unknown location somewhere in northern Iraq.
It was not long after arriving in Kurdistan that Hillier found himself on the front lines.
Inside the bunkers at the top of the hill in Tel al-Ward on Nov. 26 were ISIL militants, indicated Hillier.
Describing his role in the fight, Hillier said, “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,” Hillier said. “It would have made keeping up with the front units difficult.” He called the Kurds “amazing, brave fighters.”
This fight is for humanity. The Kurds do not fight just to protect Kurds, but all people.
Hillier was also able to put his first-aid training to use.
During the firefight, he said one of the Kurds beside him was shot in the face.
“I dragged him to cover,” he explained.
Once he was in a safe location, Hillier reportedly applied a pressure bandage to the fallen Peshmerga, which was the most he could do at the time.
He and at least one other Kurd have video evidence of the event. One of the videos has surfaced online and Hillier claims to have caught the whole thing on a GoPro camera.
“I am unsure if my actions saved his life but I truly hope so,” Hillier says. (He later added on Facebook that he is certain the injured fighter survived.)
Hillier, who grew up in Carleton Place and is the son of Progressive Conservative MPP Randy Hillier, said he accomplished more good in 20 hours at Tel al-Ward than he did in the past 26 years of his life.
When asked why the Nov. 26 battle was so important to him, he firmly responded: “Because I helped liberate a town from evil people.”
During the attack no civilians were in sight, according to Hillier.
“I’d imagine they were hiding. There was a lot of lead flying about,” he recounted.
When the shooting stopped, some of the dead gunmen reportedly had a red ribbon on their arm.
“Apparently it was their special forces that we fought … and they didn’t fight very hard,” Hillier said.
When it reached nightfall at Tel al-Ward, Hillier and the Kurds eventually ended up staying at the hilltop fortifications overnight.
“We slept in their tents, captured a dushka, and a tonne of ammo,” recounted Hillier through his phone a few days later.
A DshK, or “dushka,” is a Sovietera heavy machine-gun. He said ISIL typically uses a mix of NATO weapons and Soviet guns, as do the Peshmerga.
The next day, on Nov. 27, Hillier left Tel al-Ward and safely returned to a Kurdish base.
News out of an Iraqi blog concluded that three Peshmerga soldiers were killed as a result of the firefight that day.
Hillier’s Facebook page also claims that not everyone made it out alive.
The operation, which liberated Tel al-Ward from ISIL, resulted in the death of “dozens” of insurgents, according to a statement released to Iraqi media by Gen. Mohamed Haji Qadir of the Peshmerga.
The Kurds, who have been hospitable to him since his arrival, are not like the enemy, according to Hillier.
“This fight is for humanity,” he wrote. “The Kurds do not fight just to protect Kurds, but all people.”
But Hillier’s solo campaign is not without its critics. Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney advised Canadians not to take up arms with foreign militias, including those fighting Canada’s enemies, such as ISIL.
“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,” Blaney said.
And military analyst Scott Taylor, who has been to Northern Iraq many times in his career, said the Peshmerga consists of an “unholy alliance” between two leaders.
He compared the structure of the Kurdish military, Peshmerga, as “two mafia bosses dividing up the turf,” and he warned that Peshmerga is not a homogeneous ethnic group.
“(Peshmerga) means anyone with a gun,” Taylor said in a Nov. 28 telephone interview. “The Kurds are very tribal.”
Taylor warned of the dangers for Canadian volunteers following Hillier’s lead.
He discouraged anyone from planning to “go in blind” to a foreign conflict.
Taylor spoke out last week against Hillier’s actions in an article in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald.
He said Canadians should not champion volunteers like Hillier: “Instead, save your praise for those in uniform serving our national interests abroad.”
Hillier’s response to Taylor is blunt: “They (the Peshmerga) are a professional military force.”
But Hillier is not the only volunteer embedded with the Kurds.
An Israeli-Canadian woman named Gill Rosenberg joined with the Peshmerga earlier this year.
According to the Jerusalem Post, a number of Islamist websites claim to have kidnapped her recently, but on Monday she posted a notice on her Facebook page saying she was safe.
For Hillier, Tel al-Ward appears to be just the beginning.
He said he was not sure how long he was going to be in Iraq.
“This is what I was meant to do,” Hillier wrote.