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JIM MATTHEWS ON WHY HE CHOSE TO FIGHT ISLAMIC STATE
The blasts as three Islamic State car bombs hit a town in northern Syria were so catastrophic, he heard them from 10 miles away. Former British soldier Jim Matthews raced to Tal Tamir to help in the rescue effort and saw a woman’s legs poking out of the rubble of a smashed building.
They were moving slightly as she clung on to her last moments of life but he was unable to reach her. Now back in England, it is an image that still haunts Jim.
He chose to go to the war-ravaged country to fight IS but on his return a year later, he became the first person prosecuted for fighting with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
The UK does not class the YPG as a terror group and we and the US are backing its forces to drive IS from Syria. He had plotted his route back by ferry from France, anticipating his arrest and thinking it less conspicuous than flying into Heathrow. But he was arrested and charged with “attending a place used for terrorist training”.
After more than two years, the case was dropped when the CPS offered no evidence against him. Now, six months on, the 44-year-old is only just starting to comprehend the things he saw and has written a memoir, Fighting Monsters, to share his remarkable story.
“That night in Tal Tamir does haunt me,” Jim says over a coffee in Central London.
“She was still alive and there was nothing I could do to help her, everything around her was just too big and heavy to be moved by human hands.
“I had to make the decision to help who I could and get people out who I could, it was about prioritising in the moment – but I still had to walk back and forward, passing her moving legs, knowing she was still alive.
“The worst thing I have taken away from the experience is this constant hyper-vigilance. If I can hear something LEAP OF FAITH YPG drove Jim over the border from Iraq In Syria and, above his ID card from Bosnia tour and alert
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Syria was like reconciling the two sides of my life – being in the Army and being anti-war