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Dillon Hillier was working construction in Alberta when ISIS gunmen began their brutal push into Kurdish territory. A veteran of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, he decided he couldn’t just watch it happen.

Last weekend, the 26-year-old infantryman left Calgary and flew to northeastern Iraq to help Kurdish fighters fend off the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham. “I just felt it was the right thing to do since they’re facing some pretty tough times,” he said in an interview.

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The first veteran of the Canadian military known to have joined Kurdish forces battling ISIS, Mr. Hillier is part of a growing number of Western volunteers heading to the region to participate in the fight against the armed extremists.

“I look at what I’m doing as no different than when thousands of Canadians went to fight the Germans in World War II,” said Mr. Hillier, who served in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. “And I think ISIS is far more barbaric.”