Yeah I was in Iraq and Syria with kurds for almost 2 years beginning in late 2014 (just checked some records to confirm). It sucked, everyone was great for the most part and there's still a lot of people I worry about but they're also caught in the middle of disputes over oil and pipeline control and getting armed not too dissimilarly from ISIL/ISUS.
https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/d0bbf518-480e-4b96-8563-d8dfb2cc8fe4.jpeg
I was literally suicidal and just couldn't do it myself so I figured I'd go get myself killed there. Now I'm ok. Just stay in the imperial core and be ready/try to mobilize there safely.
And I can't substantiate this at all but Israeli medical professionals were stopped on at least two occasions I was aware of leaving areas where ISIS guys got rounded up days later with recent medical aid having been rendered to them.
I primarily did forensics on dead ISIS guys' phones. Matched photos with geographic features/GIS data, sat in their group chats, etc. But I also got shot.
Most cool thing happened north of Musil, on the way back to the center of a town we were staying in. A puppy ran right up to us and I thought it looked a little too much like a wolf. Sure enough the mom was staring at us with her grey wolf puppy from 20m away and as soon as I saw her we retreated and took a longer route.
glad you're still with us comrade but also i hope you know by posting this i will now canonize you as the One True Coolest Hexbear
i went to pat dogs and scritch cats in Syria also i am brace beldens fifth alt on hexbear dot net