British actor joins Kurds to fight Islamic State

Michael Enright, a British actor who has played several minor roles in Hollywood films, has joined a Kurdish militia to fight the Islamic State, according to an Arabic TV report broadcast Thursday.

Enrigh left his Los Angeles home over three months ago for the eastern Syrian town of Hasakeh, the TV report said. He appears in the interview in fatigues with a Kalashnikov rifle slung over his shoulder.

Enright, who had a minor role in a Pirates of the Caribbean film, told Emirati Al-Aan TV that he felt compelled to join the Syrian Kurdish YPG forces after seeing the Islamic State’s atrocities.

“ISIS, they need to be wiped off completely from the face of this Earth,” he told the station in an English interview. “They are a stain on humanity.”

“This is not just a Kurdish call. This is a call to humanity to obliterate them,” he said.

“I saw what they were doing. Then I saw what these non-Islamic people, these non-Muslims — ISIS, daesh, the IS, whatever you want to call it, I call them ISIS for the time being — It was just horrendous.”

He said that after seeing Islamic State executioner behead American journalist Steven Sotloff, “I just said: Oh, wow. I got to try and help. I’m going to try and right that wrong.” The straw that broke the camel’s back, as he put it, was the Islamic State’s burning of a captive Jordanian pilot alive.

Criticizing the Iraqi Shiite militias, who last week retreated from Ramadi rather than fight the Islamic State, Enright called them “the French of the Middle East” for their tendency to surrender.

Enright said he was inspired by the Kurdish fighting spirit. “I didn’t come here to run (away), I came here to fight, and if I have to die I am going to die.”