Footage found on a GoPro camera which was mounted to the helmet of a dead Islamic State (Isis) fighter has revealed an intense first person perspective of an IS (Daesh) fighter during a chaotic and battle with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq. Kurdish Peshmerga forces released the footage and said the camera was found after a battle with IS militants, which they identified the fighters as.
The IS fighter wearing the camera is referred to as Abu Radhwan throughout the video. It begins by showing a man, believed to be a suicide bomber, saying his final farewells before travelling in a heavily armoured vehicle to carry out his mission. Other fighters, including Abu Radhwan, take their partly armoured vehicles across the desert landscape, before a battle then ensues with rockets hitting several IS vehicles. Islamist fighters fired assault rifles, machine-guns and rockets towards a base in the distance, the footage shows.
The video revealed a side to IS that is rarely seen in official propaganda videos released by the group. The fighters bicker among each other, shouting as panic sets and becoming critical of each others fighting techniques. A blast targeting Abu Radhwans disables the vehicle with the driver seemingly dead from the strike. The fighters then leave the vehicle and retreat as Abu Radhwan is struck down, injured, before screaming for help.
Peshmerga officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Yasir Abdulla, said the camera was found on a dead IS fighter the morning after fighting had subsided, as they collected weapons and ammunition left at the site of the battle. Abdulla said the Kurdish Peshmerga forces often replenish their equipment from weapons, ammunition and vehicles left behind by defeated IS militants.
