Enright: ‘IS need to be wiped from the face of the earth’
The British actor Michael Enright, who starred alongside Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, is in Syria fighting Isis – and he says he is prepared to die for the cause.
Describing the militant group as a “stain on humanity”, the Hollywood actor told Gulf-based Al Aan TV that he had decided to join the fight after seeing videos of a Jordanian pilot being burned alive and the murder of US journalist James Foley.
The actor, who previously lived in the United States, said he felt a debt to America and the need “to help right a wrong”. “[IS] need to be wiped off completely from the face of this earth,” he told the TV station.
“I didn’t come here to run, I came here to fight and if I have to die, then I die. I didn’t come here to play games.”
Foreign fighters
Mr Enright, who has no military background, reportedly sleeps in the Syrian mountains and keeps his Kalashnikov rifle constantly at his side. He has spent much of the last month on the front line, guarding one of the border areas taken over by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), with IS fighters thought to be only a few hundred yards away.
The actor – who has starred in films including Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Knight and Day and Old Dogs – is one of dozens of foreign fighters who have travelled to join the YPG in the fight against miltants. At least 100 fighters from Britain, the US, Australia and Europe are thought are thought to be among the forces countering the group’s offensive in the Kurdish regions.
They include Macer Gifford, a 28-year-old former Tory councillor from Oxford, who arrived in the region in December.
Macer Gifford is a name adopted as a nom de guerre by the man referred to in this report. We have been asked to clarify that there is another individual whose real name is Macer Gifford who has no connection to this man and has not been engaged in any of the activities referred to.