25-03-2015 - We met him in Erbil, capital of Kurdistan, and we immediately liked each other.
Italy and Kurdistan have much in common, starting from the flag’s colors.
He escorted us for days on the battlefront, telling us about his life and his country’s current situation; he even showed us some family pictures.
Muhamad Assad Khoshawi, Buttin, is tall, with black moustaches and a smile lingering on his lips. He has a resolute attitude and his men admire him.
He was born in 1968 in Teheran, since his family consisted of refugees in Iran during the Barzani insurrection against the Iraqi regime.
His extensive family, originally from Selke -a small town in Kurdistan- returned in 1969, passing through the provinces around Dohuk until 1975, on account of the revolt against the Iraqi regime.
Buttin’s father was a leader in the Peshmerga army, in the province of Dohuk, and his uncle led a regiment of Peshmerga in the vicinity of Dohuk.
After the defeat of Barzani’s movement in 1975, the family fled to Iran again, along with many other soldiers.
Buttin’s father, Assad Khoshawi, was friends with Mustafa Barzani, who died in Washington (USA); he was very close to Idris Barzani, father of Nechirvan Barzan, now Prime Minster of Kurdistan, and to Masoud Barzani, the current President of Kurdistan.
His father died in 1977, but his brothers, sons and nephews never stopped following his steps against the Iraqi regime.
From 1976 to 1991, Masoud Barzani led the Golan movement and continued fighting against Saddam’s regime.
Following this, with the help of western allies, Kurds tried to keep control of their future. This is how the Kurd Parliament was founded in 1991, and established its own regional government in 1992.
Since then, Peshmerga forces became known as “regular armed forces,” turning from an armed militia to a proper army, according modern standards.
From 1991, Buttin passed all the training and grades, joining the “Sepahi Barzan” Peshmerga forces.
On June 10th 2014, he begun fighting against ISIS during a moment of maximum alert for the Peshmerga forces, due to ISIS’ attacks in Iran and Kurdistan.
On July 23rd 2014, Buttin and his regiment were sent to Falzil village, near Musel Dam. Thereafter, he served in Zomar at north of Musel, in an area called Rabiaah where he chased away ISIS.
Each battle against ISIS has its own history.
Buttin’s mission was to protect Awinat and Rabiaah before leading his regiment to Makmoor, in the province of Gwer and defending the area surrounding the city of Sultan Abdulla.
This is the direct statement of a commander and an extraordinary man we met in Kurdistan; he is active on the first line, in the trenches that he and his men build and fortify in order to resist ISIS’s onslaught.
They are extraordinary warriors, able to endure the cold and the heat, used to surviving with little or nothing, proud to belong to a land that is part of history although men forgot it.
Now, Kurds of any ethnicity join forces in the most important battle against an enemy called “terrorism”: it’s an unbalanced and bloody conflict without rules.
The whole world knows and appreciates them.
Italy has been helping them with a coalition-structured mission.
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They fight for their independence, for their land rich of oil and gas, where more than 50 oil companies control the economy.
The slaughter caused by Saddam’s gas did not destroy them: it made them stronger and conscious that you must stay together in order to win battles.
We saw them fighting on the front; there were endless bombardments only a few hundred meters from us. These are the sorts of conflicts that make us reflect upon and comprehend the absurdity of this war, in which we are only powerless witnesses that narrate the facts through images.