Meet a Kurdish Commander Who Stares Down ISIS Every Day

For hundreds of years, Hussein Yazdanpana’s family has fought for freedom from an endless array of enemy forces. But today’s battle is truly one for the ages.

Photos by Mohammed Abdullah

Some twenty miles outside the ISIS-controlled area of Hawija, in northern Iraq, commander Hussein Yazdanpana shakes the hands of two American soldiers. They are standing on a dirt path next to a wall of sandbags. For a moment they glance over to the training field below the hill where some twenty young Iranian-Kurdish recruits are learning to dismantle a gun while blindfolded. Then the two Americans leave. They had come to exchange information and check on their weapons.