Inside the Kurdish Ground War on ISIS | Explorer

[Music] I began covering War for National Geographic in 2006, and I never got to Kurdistan during that part of the war. In fact, I really didn't have any idea who the Kurds were back then. I happened to meet some wounded Kurdish soldiers in Baghdad, and I started to think, who are these guys? I've never even heard of them. Where do they live?

Going north to Kurdistan after covering the war in the South was like going to a different country. I think the story of the Kurds is one of the most important ones I've ever been involved with because these are people who've been largely left alone to face the greatest terrorist threat in the world. They have been an important American ally, but after the Iraq War sort of slowed down, we, the Americans, left them to their own fate. Now they're standing strong against ISIS, and very few other groups can do that.

I'd like people to learn from this show more about the Kurds—who they are, what they're facing, and why they're going to be an ally for the West going forward. They are facing an enormous challenge right now in trying to keep their country stable while they fight off this enormous enemy. We, even the United States, haven't really had to do something like that in its history, so it's a unique struggle. I think Americans will sympathize greatly with this.

The most lasting impact was made by a few of the people that I interviewed, including the female commander of the women's battalion. She had recently lost a daughter while they were both together fighting ISIS. So, mother and daughter were fighting on the same front line; the daughter was under the mother's command, and the daughter was killed by mortar fire. That was an incredibly powerful story to hear because it's not every day that you meet someone who has given so much to defend their homeland.

When I hear ISIS, it makes me angry. Actually, this struggle comes closest to good versus evil. It's almost silly to describe anything in such stark terms, but ISIS is not an enemy that you negotiate with. It makes me angry to think about what they have done, especially after meeting people, friends now, who've lost family members in the fight against ISIS. It actually pushes you out of the journalistic objectivity thing a bit, and there are many times when I thought I would have gladly joined the Kurds to fight against ISIS myself.