THE CITY BROKER WHO GAVE UP EVERYTHING TO BATTLE ISIS
Appalled by atrocities in Syria, Macer Gifford joined international volunteers fighting terror, in the proud tradition of George Orwell
MACER GIFFORD cradled the head of his dying comrade as dozens of Islamic State fanatics stormed the ruined remains of the apartment building. Rocketpropelled grenades blasted chunks of masonry, throwing up choking clouds of dust, as the enemy closed in.
The wounded man, Demhat, a Kurdish militiaman, had been shot hours earlier in the same ISIS ambush in which Macer himself had been hit. By sheer chance, as they had sprinted for cover, a bullet had smashed into a spare AK47 magazine on Macer’s belt, sending him sprawling across the road.
It was autumn 2017 and the Syrian Democratic Forces, with Allied air support, were on the brink of finally defeating the Islamic State terror group in their de facto capital Raqqa. But the grime-covered British warrior wielding his rifle against ISIS was a very different man to the one who arrived in Syria three years before.
Then just 27, the City broker had ditched a high-flying finance career to join a handful of international volunteers supporting Kurdish resistance to the terrifying spread of ISIS across Syria and Iraq.
“I could not believe that the Western nations were just standing by and letting ISIS grow,” Macer, now back in the UK, told the Daily Express.
Day after day through the late summer of 2014, he had sat at his desk in the City reading with horror about the latest atrocities
‘Many were dying from survivable wounds. He was put in charge of his own tactical medical unit’
carried out by the terrorists until he could stand no more.
Displayed on the wall of his smart flat in Battersea, London, were a series of medals won by members of his family who had fought at Waterloo, in the Crimea, in the Boer War and on The Somme. But the politics graduate from Cambridgeshire had never served in the military himself.
Still he was ready to go to Syria armed only with an adventurous spirit, as much military training as he had picked up in his school cadet force and a deep hatred of the bloodthirsty terrorists.
“Western governments might have been warweary but I felt sure thousands of people like me were horrified by the growth of the Islamic State,” he explains. “I decided I wanted to go to fight against that evil.” His relationship with his girlfriend Anna came to an abrupt and tearful end when he told her he was quitting his career to do humanitarian work in Syria.
His parents – a commercial property developer and a fitness instructor – were bewildered. His mother had tears in her eyes after dropping him off at the train station.
Today, he accepts he was acting selfishly but, having assumed the name of a 1960s National Hunt jockey to protect his family (Macer Gifford is a nom de guerre), he used Facebook to contact the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). He flew first to Iraq just before New Year 2015, nervous that he might end up paraded on TV in an orange boiler suit. But he was determined to help the Kurds fighting for survival against what were, in those early days, overwhelming ISIS forces equipped with weaponry stripped from retreating Iraqi forces.
The first few months involved rudimentary training with other international volunteers and precious little sight of the enemy.
But the fighting, when it came, left Macer terrified for his life. He survived and with ordinary people back home becoming more familiar with the horrors of ISIS, the YPG, with growing US support, liberated large swathes of Kurdish Syrian territory.
Taking a break back in the UK, Macer threw himself into promoting the Kurdish cause, with talks and media work.
When he returned to Syria for a second tour of duty it was to do something about a lack of basic medical care, which left many young fighters dying from survivable wounds. He became one of the very few