A political activist says he was denied the chance to fight Islamic State because of his age.
Local historian Alan Brooke, of Honley, recently travelled to Kurdistan hoping to help Kurdish forces hold back Islamic extremists.
But Mr Brooke, 62, said he was kept out of the conflict zone because he was too old.
The former archeologist flew to the Kurdish capital of Sulaymaniyah to meet contacts who could smuggle him to the Syrian border through the mountains.
At home Alan, who was held by Turkish forces in 1993 and 1997 during missions to northern Iraq, had to keep his intentions quiet for fear of being detained.
He said: “I could have been arrested if they knew I wanted to travel to Syria.
“The tipping point was the fact that Islamic State (IS) was attacking Kurdish areas in Syria and all the Kurds wanted to do was have their own local government.
“What I wanted to do was fight against IS. It did feel scary but I felt so strongly about it. I thought I had to do something.
“I’m 62 but there are local Kurds of that age who are fighting because they don’t have any choice.”
But on being refused Mr Brooke said: “It was mixed emotions. The heat was up to the mid-40s (ºC) so it probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but I was disappointed I couldn’t make a more practical contribution.
“I was told repeatedly that my role was back in the UK spreading the information.”
Instead anarchist Mr Brooke met members of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), an outlawed group of Kurdish radicals who have been defending Kurdish territories from the jihadists.
The PKK, which had been fighting in eastern Turkey for an autonymous Kurdish state since 1984, declared a ceasefire in 2013.
The organisation, which has a quasi-legal status in Kurdistan, remains on the EU ‘terror list’ and has been declared a terrorist organisation by several non-EU countries including Australia, Canada and Japan.
But Mr Brooke, who met one of the PKK’s leaders Cemil Bayik, said the party is a peaceful, democratic and modern-thinking organisation.
To meet Bayik, Mr Brooke had to travel through numerous checkpoints into the remote Qandil mountains, which is controlled by the PKK.
He said: “I wanted to get the information from the horse’s mouth, rather than what you read on the internet.
“They’re just ordinary people. They were very cultured and intelligent.”
After returning to the UK, Alan is meeting Colne Valley MP Jason McCartney to discuss how to remove the PKK’s terrorist status.
He added: “They’re certainly not ruthless terrorists. One man said he hated guns but he had no choice because his people had been oppressed by the Turks.”
