‘Unit 732’ relies on drones to check Daesh
French volunteers in Iraq got together on social media following attacks on Charlie Hebdo
The translator rushed towards the rudimentary trailer housing the French volunteers who came to Iraq to fight against Daesh alongside Kurdish forces.
“Come quick, the general wants to see you! And bring your helicopter,” he told them, as an armoured convoy assembled and prepared to leave the base. General Araz Abdul kader, who commands the Kurdish Peshmerga forces stationed in Daquq, a town around 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, had just received information on possible terrorist movements near the front line.
What the translator calls a helicopter is in fact a small commercial drone which can be carried in a backpack and has turned out to be the French volunteers’ most valuable “weapon”.
Fred, Kim and Pascal are among six former servicemen from France forming the French contingent in Daquq, not counting Bella the dog, the group’s mascot.
They have called themselves “Unit 732”, a reference to the date of a battle that saw Frankish-led forces defeat the troops of the Umayyad caliphate in central France.
All six have significant military experience, but the Peshmerga keep them mostly in the rear and they have not yet fired a shot in anger.
“We’re working on a training programme and, mostly, what we do is recon and intelligence gathering,” said Pascal, a Corsican sporting a salt-and-pepper moustache.
With 25 years’ experience in private security in France, Africa and the Middle East, he’s the group’s veteran.
The tiny contingent was welcomed by Iraqi Kurds, who are some of the main recipients of Western military aid to fight Daesh.
France has good relations with Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Daquq front line, where the autonomous region’s forces are deployed, is one of the areas where the French jets that are part of the US-led coalition have been the most active.
“These six men are worth many more, they master some technologies we don’t,” the Peshmerga general said. “They brought this drone from France, it is very useful to us.”
That day, the small device - which has a range of four to five kilometres - flew across a wide open plain to monitor and record enemy movements without exposing a Peshmerga reconnaissance unit on the ground. The volunteers in Unit 732 got together on social media following the January attacks which Daesh claimed against satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris. “It started with Charlie Hebdo... something happened inside of me,” said Pascal, who wears the Kurdish flag on one arm patch and the French tricolour on the other.