While there has been plenty of coverage on foreigners leaving their home countries to join ISIS, somewhat less talked about has been those who have traveled to the region to join the fight against ISIS — some for religious reasons, some for reasons of simple justice, and some probably for their own reasons:

Saint Michael, the archangel of battle, is tattooed across the back of a U.S. army veteran who recently returned to Iraq and joined a Christian militia fighting Islamic State in what he sees as a biblical war between good and evil.

Brett, 28, carries the same thumb-worn pocket Bible he did whilst deployed to Iraq in 2006 – a picture of the Virgin Mary tucked inside its pages and his favourite verses highlighted.

“It’s very different,” he said, asked how the experiences compared. “Here I’m fighting for a people and for a faith, and the enemy is much bigger and more brutal.”

Further:

Matthew VanDyke says he is “stepping in where the international community failed.”

In a post on Twitter Thursday, the American said he has spent the last two months “helping to raise a Christian army” in Iraq to fight the Islamic State group.

“The international community does very little for Christians in the Middle East, so if they’re not going to do it, we’ll do it.”

FoxNews even led with a headline of “Onward Christian Soldiers” for a time.

The situation is probably Read more