Jac Holmes (18 January 1993 - 23 October 2017) was a British volunteer with the Kurdish
YPG
The People's Defense Units (YPG), (YPG) ; ar, وحدات حماية الشعب, Waḥdāt Ḥimāyat aš-Šaʽb) also called People's Protection Units, is a mainly-Kurds in Syria, Kurdish militia in Syria and the primary component of the ...
militia who fought against
ISIL
An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...
in
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
from January 2015 until his death in
Raqqa
Raqqa ( ar, ٱلرَّقَّة, ar-Raqqah, also and ) (Kurdish languages, Kurdish: Reqa/ ڕەقە) is a city in Syria on the northeast bank of the Euphrates River, about east of Aleppo. It is located east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. T ...
on 23 October 2017 while clearing mines from the city.
Holmes was a former IT worker and decorator from
Poole
Poole () is a large coastal town and seaport in Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 2019, the local authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Counc ...
in Dorset. He had no military experience before traveling to Syria in January 2015, shortly after he turned 22. Holmes did three tours of northern Syria with the YPG and featured regularly in international media about foreign fighters with Kurdish-led forces, including the
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
documentary 'Frontline Fighting: The Brits Battling ISIS'. His death came four days after the Syrian Democratic Forces declared the liberation of Raqqa.
In a Q&A on Facebook on 4 October 2017, Holmes said his reason for travelling to Syria was "Because I was sick of seeing what was going on in Syria, and western nations not doing enough to help"
Josh Walker, another British volunteer with the YPG who was cleared of terrorism charges after returning from fighting in Syria, said Holmes was "A good fighter dedicated to the cause, he learned & spoke the language well - which is unusual in foreign fighters. Among foreigners and Kurds alike he was very popular and a very good man."
Holmes took the Kurdish nom-de-guerre Sores Amanos. 'Sores' means 'revolution' in
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
.
He was one of the longest serving U.K. foreign fighters when he died.
During the battle for Raqqa, he commanded the four-man 223 YPG Sniper Unit made up of international volunteers from Spain, the US and Germany.
Holmes was killed on 23 October by an
IED in Raqqa. He was the sixth British volunteer to be killed while fighting ISIL in Syria.
Hundreds of mourners gathered in Dorset on Friday 2 February 2018 to attend Holmes' funeral. "About 500 people, including family members, friends, British Kurds, the parents of other British men to have died in Syria and about 30 former YPG comrades from across the world" attended the service in Wimborne to pay tribute to Holmes, according to The Guardian. His coffin was covered with flowers in the colours of the YPG and the YPG commander Nuri Mahmud spoke via Skype from Syria to offer his personal condolences and to commend Jac for his contribution to the eradication of ISIS in Raqqa. Following the service, his coffin was taken to Poole Crematorium.
References
External links
Jac Holmes Instagram account(link dead)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holmes, Jac
2017 deaths
People killed in the Syrian civil war
People's Protection Units
1993 births