In Iraq, former Iowa soldier helping Kurds fight Iran

A former Iowa National Guardsman who returned to Iraq in May to help fight the Islamic State says he’s now facing a different foe: the Iranian army.

Ryan O’Leary originally went to north-central Iraq, where he volunteered to help train Kurdish soldiers fighting the extremist group also known as ISIS. But he told The Des Moines Register by phone this week that he shifted farther north in July, to work with a Kurdish soldiers trying to hold off Iranian troops along the border between Iraq and Iran.

ISIS has captured world attention recently because of its brutality in the region. But O’Leary said he came to believe Iran poses a bigger danger to the Kurds, a minority population he admires and supports.

“At the end of the day, ISIS isn’t going to be a long-term threat. They’re going to get pushed back, just like Al Qaeda has been,” he said. “They’ll be some of those people in the shadows if there’s a car bomb now and again. They’ll still be a threat. But they’re not going to be holding a lot of land in the future.”

The Kurds have carved out a semi-autonomous area of northern Iraq, but many of their people also live in neighboring Iran and Turkey. Their dream is to have an independent homeland, and O’Leary believes they deserve it. Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons and helicopter gunships to try to snuff out Kurdish ambitions. Saddam is gone, but Iran and Turkey have continued to try to keep a lid on the Kurds.

O’Leary, 28, is a former Iowa National Guard corporal who served in Iraq in 2007-08 and in Afghanistan in 2010-11. He decided to return to Iraq on his own this spring after hearing from a former interpreter who is Kurdish and serving with the Peshmerga, which is the Kurds’ army. O’Leary contends the Kurds deserve more U.S. support, because they’ve been stalwart allies of America.

U.S. officials have warned him it’s dangerous and unwise for him to be in Iraq, but they have told the Register what he’s doing is legal.

O’Leary said he’s now serving in a mountainous area where Iraq meets Iran and Turkey. It’s about 260 miles north of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. He estimated on Thursday that Iranian soldiers were set up less than a mile from his location. “I could shoot at the Iranians now and probably hit some,” he said with a chuckle.

He added, however, that Kurdish leaders don’t want to start a fight with the Iranian army. Iranian soldiers occasionally fire bullets or mortar rounds in the Kurds’ direction, he said, and they killed a shepherd about a week ago.

“Right now, it’s pretty much a standoff. We’ve got guns pointed at each other," he said.

Like so much in the region, the situation around O’Leary is complicated and confusing. During the phone interview Thursday, the sound of jets could be heard nearby. He said they appeared to be Turkish fighter planes, possibly harassing other Kurdish units in the area.

Although O’Leary has seen other former American and British soldiers in northern Iraq, he said he’s the only one he knows of in his rugged sector. He said he’s been helping train new recruits, including Kurdish men from Iran who have been slipping over the border into Iraq. They work on infantry tactics and go on patrols through the mountains.

“We pretty much sleep on the ground, wherever we’re at for the night,” he said. “We have some fortified positions, but we usually sleep outside on the dirt or in the rocks. It’s pretty primitive.”

They drink water from streams and eat local food. He brought along his National Guard camouflage uniforms, which he’d stripped of U.S. insignia. But he’s now switched to the plain khaki uniforms of the Peshmerga, so he doesn’t stand out as much.

He said he has no plans to return to Iowa soon. He left behind a girlfriend in the Des Moines area who disapproved of his quest. They since have broken up, he said. His parents also told him they thought it was a bad idea to return on his own to Iraq, but they told the Register they support his decision. The Register is not identifying his parents’ names or their hometown at the request of the FBI, which is concerned they could potentially be targets for reprisals.

His mother said O'Leary has kept in touch with their family via email and Facebook. He sounds well, she wrote in an email to the Register this weekend. "The political instability of that area naturally causes us to be concerned for his safety, but for now it sounds like he is where he wants to be."

After serving with the Iowa National Guard in Afghanistan, O’Leary transferred to the Louisiana National Guard to be near his then-wife in New Orleans. But they divorced, and he applied to transfer back to the Iowa National Guard.

In deciding to return to Iraq on his own, he walked away from his commitment to the Louisiana Guard and, by extension, the U.S. Army. His actions could have led to allegations that he was “absent without leave,” which could have brought formal charges and a court martial. He said Thursday he was unsure of his status.

But a spokesman with the Louisiana National Guard told the Register that O’Leary had been declared “separated” from the Guard, and that the Army had granted him an honorable discharge.

O’Leary expressed relief at the news, because it could mean he’ll retain his veterans benefits. That would be helpful, especially since he has received treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs for post-traumatic stress disorder, and he might need more help once he returns to the U.S.

The PTSD stems from his combat experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Iowa Guard. When asked Thursday how he’s coping with the condition, he replied, “If anything, being here has helped.”

O'Leary ended the conversation abruptly, saying he had to go. Fighter jets were back overhead, and his unit needed to move.