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But he said ISIL was losing ground. He spoke about coming home for “steak burger beer.” He noted that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had “called a few people I know asking what I was doing.”

The YPG captured Manbij in mid-August and on Sept. 17 Nassone wrote that he was “back from the front for a bit.” He said the YPG was within 45 kilometres of Raqqah and that he had been part of the push.

“Hoping to get a new weapon. Looks like we might be going on another big offensive,” he wrote on Oct. 1. He said he still had his AK rifle but mostly used a 1939 bolt action rifle he had named Babushka.

Tassone said he planned to stay in Syria until March. “Then go home or somewhere in the world for a week and then go back to the fight,” he wrote. “I don’t want to leave until we beat these goat f**kers and then I will see from there.”

He was becoming increasingly concerned about Turkey, which was fighting the YPG because of its affiliation with the separatist PKK, which wants a Kurdish homeland. He said Turkey was working with ISIL.

He was worried that Turkish forces would attack his unit, forcing him to fight back against a NATO member. He thought that might get him imprisoned upon his return to Canada. “It’s a predicament,” he wrote.

In late November a Turkish airstrike killed two of Tassone’s friends, an American and a German. Tassone was himself wounded by an ISIL mine. “Fractured my toe and the guy in front of me is dead,” he wrote on Dec. 6.

“Leaving in 2 days for Raqqah so probably be gone for another 2 months,” he added. He was “worried about this one my friend. It’s going … bad.” He said he was now an RPG gunner. He still had no armor plates for his combat vest, although Webster was trying to send him money to buy one.