We're the road to Arbil, passing through Kirkuk. Pishtewan is in the car with Travis, Anas, and myself. You may recall some of Pishtewan's earlier adventures.

As we approach an Iraqi Police checkpoint, he animatedly tells us these are his "friends", the ones he fought with a few weeks back. Then he moves over to the near window and begins ( Read more... )

When slownewsday and I first arrived here, one of the guards was a former peshmerga named Pishtewan. Pishtewan has a long and checkered history, including many years with the peshmerga, being a bandit ("Ali Baba") along the Iran/Iraq border, a member of the Free Iraqi Forces during the war, and more fights (fist and gun) than any man has a right to survive ( Read more... )