A recording of an interview in Syria with 22-year-old Dean Carl Evans, from Reading, has been found after he died in battle last month

He went to fight Islamic State, and although the food was bad and war a tortuous mix of the boring and the frightening, Dean Carl Evans found such fulfilment in battling extremists on the dusty fringe of Syria that he never wanted to leave.



The 22-year-old dairy farmer from Reading fought anonymously, worried about repercussions from the British authorities or revenge attacks from Isis sympathisers if he one day tried to return from his unusual mission.

But after he was killed in battle last month he was named by relatives and comrades in arms. The Observer has obtained audiotapes of a previously unpublished interview Evans gave a few months after reaching Syria. Clear about the risk of death, he talked frankly about the difficulties of life on the frontline, and explained why he chose to sacrifice his life in a foreign war that he saw as very personal.

“Back home you have a lot of worries, about car, money, social things, but here it doesn’t matter. Here you just have one goal that’s shared through everyone, defeating Daesh,” he said, using the common Arabic derogatory term for Isis. If it became too much, he said he was free to leave, unlike foreign Isis recruits who face execution. The fear of being killed in an escape bid was apparently a major reason that Kadiza Sultana – who was 16 when she and two school friends from Bethnal Green, east London, ran away to Syria last year – did not flee Raqqa long after becoming disillusioned with Isis. News of her death in a Russian bombing raid emerged last week.

“I can always leave here and go back,” Evans said in the interview at his unit’s base inside Kurdish-controlled Syria in April last year, “[but] I want to stay here as long as possible.”

The idea of joining up was born in long hours in the fields, worrying about the rise of the terrorist group and the horror it was spreading. “I was on my own on a tractor and had a lot of time to think and listen to the radio,” he said.

Evans came from a military family, and although he did not join the army he was increasingly drawn to tackling violence with force. “It wasn’t a specific incident which happened, it was the fact that I knew people were coming here to help. It didn’t fit right with me that I was at home living my comfortable life when I could be here.”

He had found his enemy long before he found the people he would fight and die beside. “I followed Daesh before I heard about Kurds,” he said. “I didn’t know Kurds existed. When I first heard about the Kurds it was about a year ago, I was searching for ways to come here.”

He found a Facebook page for the unit he would join called “Lions of Rojava”, the Kurdish name for the region of northern Syria they dominate. For seven or eight months, he weighed up the risks. He died from an Isis bullet during a push towards the strategic town of Manbij. “Before coming here I had time to think of that and get ready. Obviously, I don’t want to die, but if it happens while fighting, then … ” He trailed off into silence. He seemed more frightened of capture by an enemy notorious for its cruelty than of death. “Yeah, I’m scared of Daesh, but I’m not really scared of dying.”

The journey was complicated, to throw off the authorities already keeping an eye on people heading for the Turkish border, a conduit to Isis as well as Kurdish fighters. “I flew from London to Dusseldorf, Dusseldorf to Berlin, Berlin to Istanbul,” he said. After crossing the border, he attended a camp for very brief training, “they just teach you the very minimum to get by”, and three weeks later was on the frontline.

He found the Kurds generous and friendly, but missed home. “Just simple things. Food mainly. Three hot meals a day, not eating naan 24/7. Kurdish food is good, but we are on the frontline, you can’t cook fancy meals.”

With no electricity, time off was spent sleeping, chatting, and the occasional improvised game of baseball. One night on guard duty was spent trying to move position in the sights of an Isis sniper. “We would move and he would know exactly where we were.”

The Kurds need more air support and more weapons, but also more volunteers, he said near the end of his last recorded comments. “They could use your help very much.”