SINJAR, IRAQ - Canadian fighter John Robert Gallagher was killed on 4 November in the Syrian governorate of Hasakah by an ISIS suicide bomber. Nevertheless, many Westerners are still eager to fight with the Kurds against ISIS in both Syria and Iraq.



Heval Serdam, 23, sits in his office, behind him the yellow flag of the newly-established Syrian Democratic Forces. A Kurdish fighter based in Hasakah, he speaks highly of the Canadian fighter who was killed. “I could see that he was special. He was a very polite person,” he says.



“We are very satisfied to see foreign fighters and, it boosts our morale, as Kurds, to see foreigners coming from far away to support our fight. But to see them killed is very sad.”



Dozens of Western fighters can easily be found on the frontlines in Iraq and Syria looking to kill Islamic State militants. Foreigners have been joining up with Kurdish forces in both Syria and Iraq since October 2014, and many are willing to take huge risks just to be part of major future operations in Syrian cities such as Raqqa, Jarabulus and Hasakah, or in the Iraqi city of Sinjar.



There are approximately 50 foreign fighters in the Kurdish city of Kobani who want to participate in future battles in Jarabulus and Raqqa, but most of them arrived there after ISIS fighters attacked the city in June, killing over 200 civilians, before being repelled again.



US volunteer Francisco Molinar, 25, from Arizona, is a friendly young man who decided to join the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) after feeling purposeless with his job at JPMorgan Chase bank. At one point he decided to take the next flight to Iraq and join the Kurdish struggle.



“I wanted to come to fight Daesh [ISIS] and the Kurds seemed pretty willing to accept volunteers,” he told me at a small base where Western volunteers check their Facebook accounts and rest up.



But over 50% of the foreign fighters leave quite quickly if they see no action and aren’t willing to wait a few months drinking tea while they have family back home.



Molinar headed to the frontline in Jarabulus, where Kurdish fighters face both ISIS and Turkey, but there was not enough action.



“I signed a contract in Sulaymaniyah. I gave my word for six months,” Molinar said. “But when there is nothing going on, I will leave in six months. I got bills to pay,” he added. “I absolutely want to go to Raqqa. The reason I went to Jarabulus was because I thought it would be the next place, but then I went back to Kobani.”



US foreign fighter Kevin, 26, from Virginia, also known as Heval Salahadin joined the YPG because it is a secular group and helps manage foreign fighters coming to Kobani.



“I am going to stay for six months. If operations start in either Raqqa or Jarabulus I’m going to stay longer,” he said. “I think it’s wrong to leave them when something starts like that.”



According to Kevin, many more foreign fighters will come to Kobani once operations kick off to take Raqqa and Jarabulus. But it’s not be clear if all of them will be accepted. “They will try to come when we hear there is fighting,” he said.



Kevin is also eager to fight, but points out that people sometimes join for the wrong reasons and don’t stick around if there is no fighting.



“I am eager to fight because it’s the right thing to do, but I wish there were more people to fight for the right reasons from the West,” he said.



He points out that the Kurdish movement in Syria is neither sexist nor against Islam. “If you are racist, non-secular, or sexist, you are not welcome here and you will not receive help.”



“Sexism is not welcome here at all and women have a little bit more privilege. There is a reason for that, since females have not been respected in this region and this movement is a feminist movement,” he said.



In Iraqi Kurdistan, the situation is quite different. The Kurdish Peshmerga forces do not have as strong an ideological background as the socialist YPG and as such, some of the more rightwing Western volunteers feel more comfortable with the Peshmerga forces in Iraq.



“These foreign fighters are not essential forces in the YPG,” says Heval Cihan, a German fighter with the YPG. Cihan has a stronger ideological and leftist background and speaks fluent Kurdish. He has spent years in the Kurdish movement.



“If you want to play a big role in this war you have to live here and understand Kurdistan, but they are welcome here,” he said. “We can work with these people. We can show them there are lot of more problems besides Daesh.”



On the other side of the border, in Iraq, there are also foreign fighters that fight with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces against ISIS.



Joey, 24, a US veteran from South Carolina who was previously based in oil-rich Kirkuk, says that most veterans are not afraid of dying, even after the death of the Canadian volunteer in Syria.



“You will find some people will lose their nerve after a close-call but that will mainly be the volunteers without prior experience,” he said.



Nevertheless, he says not everyone wants to just fight — some also want to help train the Kurds.



“I think some simply want to experience, but some others feel they have the training to have a significant positive impact. I have met all kinds of people here so there's quite a few reasons that vary slightly, depending on the person's background.”



Like other foreign fighters, Joe is heading to Sinjar. It’s expected that a battle will soon take place there and so far only two Western foreign fighters are in the city.



On 7 November, 11 coalition airstrikes struck several targets, destroying 21 ISIS fighting positions. Fighting in the city is ongoing.



The city is daily bombarded by ISIS mortars. Despite this, 37-year-old Canadian fighter Jason Troy and Tony, from Sweden, are happy to take part in any future action and already took part in the defense of a position against an ISIS attack on 28 October in which 12 ISIS fighters were killed.



“I want to be one of the guys to free this town,” said Tony, a veteran who fought in Yugoslavia. “And the next and the next town.”

“We are all here for the same reason: that’s to get as much action as possible,” said Jason, a former medic at an oil company.



“You see the city of Sinjar is ruined,” he said, looking at the rubble in the city. “And for what? ISIS fascism?”



Foreign fighters say they want to experience the adrenaline rush and the war instead of having casual jobs back home.



“It’s a real rush to be in a shootout. The closer to death you are, the more alive you feel,” said Troy.

Wladimir van Wilgenburg is a political analyst and freelance journalist specializing in Kurdish politics, based in Erbil. He tweets @vvanwilgenburg