DR SIMON Ross Valentine, a former teacher at Bradford Grammar School and part time lecturer at the University of Bradford, talks about his experiences living on the Front Line in Iraq.

“Not as a soldier”, he says, “But as an observer writing a book on peshmerga, the Kurdish army in Iraq fighting ISIS, the so-called Islamic State.

“I went to Kurdistan (northern Iraq) in August last year. For the past 12 months , when not living with the army on the front line, I’ve lectured at Soran University and undertaken voluntary work, teaching children whose parents are fighting as peshmerga - meaning ‘those who face death'.

“While on the front line I saw courageous men and women soldiers fighting ISIS, and witnessed the death toll caused by suicide bombers and IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

He is now writing a book about his experiences. “A large reason why I am doing this is that we in the west are not aware that peshmerga are fighting with few weapons apart from outdated Kalashnikovs, and often without pay. They have few tanks, little heavy artillery and not even gas masks in the event of a chemical attack.

“I want to remind people that, as we’ve seen in terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels and elsewhere, ISIS is the enemy of the world not just peshmerga, therefore we should give the Kurds our total support.

“One of the many commanders that I interviewed was General Rasool Mamand, in charge of the front line near Sinjar. He asked me ‘Please tell the people in the UK we are grateful for the help they are giving us, but we need much more. We can defeat ISIS but we need the weapons to do the job’.

“I also wrote the book to present ISIS for what it is, an evil misrepresentation of religion, whose atrocities and warped ideology stand in complete contrast to true Islam, a religion of peace and justice.

“In July I spent three days travelling, with armed body guards, along the front line at Kirkuk. We came under mortar and heavy machine gun fire from ISIS fighters, but with the help of coalition airplanes the attack was repelled.

“On another occasion I was taken to the mountain over-looking the city of Sinjar. Although recaptured from ISIS in November 2015 it is not safe for people to return to their homes as everywhere there are IEDs and booby traps. My guides took me to the edge of the city but with landmines everywhere, it wasn’t safe to go any closer.

“Always wary of snipers, from the bunkers on mount Bashiqa near Mosul we could clearly see the black flag of ISIS, and jihadi fighters moving round the settlements below us. They were that close.

“Yes, the situation is dangerous but it’s difficult to write about something unless you have experienced it first-hand. Many of the soldiers I’ve interviewed are women who, having lost their husbands and sons in battle against ISIS, are determined to get rid of the militants.

“We fight like men, and we are prepared to die like men”,Colonel Nahida, commander of a battalion of 600 women soldiers, told me in an interview.

“At Lalish and Sinjar I spoke with Yazidi soldiers, members of an ancient religion which ISIS, regarding as heretical, has persecuted to the point of genocide.

“One female Yazidi soldier I spoke with had most of her family massacred by ISIS, and reports indicate that her sister was taken by the jihadists and used as a sex slave. That is why she fights, for revenge and in the hope of finding her sister.

“One of the most moving sights I saw was the monument and museum at Halabja, commemorating the killing of 5,000 civilians in 1988 by chemical weapons used by Saddam Hussein’s air force. I spoke with survivors of that attack, learning about their horrendous suffering and loss.

“We take so much for granted here in the UK, like clean water when we turn the tap on and public power, gas and electricity. While I lived in Soran we only had power for a maximum of eight hours each day and usually drank only bottled water."

Simon's book, Peshmerga and the Ongoing Fight with ISIS, is to be published early next year.

"It considers the Kurdish fighting spirit since ancient times up to the struggle by peshmerga against the Islamic State today," he says.

Simon is currently back in Bradford waiting to return to Kurdistan. He would like to hear from Kurds living in the area with a story to tell about peshmerga. He can be contacted by email at archegos@btinternet.com