Meet The American Who's Taking The Fight To ISIS

Can a former prep schooler from Baltimore help protect the Christians of Mesopotamia from the Islamic State? A dispatch from northern Iraq.

- Adam Linehan

IF THERE WERE AN AWARD FOR THE AMERICAN WITH THE LONGEST rap sheet in the Middle East, Matthew VanDyke would be a top contender. By his own estimate, the 36-year-old from south Baltimore has been arrested in Iraq no fewer than 20 times, each time for essentially the same offense: being an American with no official business in Iraq. The last time, he and a friend were mistaken for Al Qaeda operatives at an Iraqi Army checkpoint on the road from Kurdistan to Baghdad. They were on motorcycles, headed to the Iraqi capital to begin filming an adventure documentary called Warzone Bikers: Baghdad to Bagram.

VanDyke’s bike was damaged during the arrest, and after he defiantly asked the Iraqi soldiers to fix it, the duo were hooded, beaten, and driven to a compound in Baghdad where they were lined up against a wall and mock-executed. “I figured we were going to die, but I wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction of seeing me afraid,” VanDyke says matter-of-factly. “But don’t worry. Those days are over.” I’m glad to hear it, because right now, as he’s telling the story, we’re driving through Iraq on some very unofficial business.

There are two others in the Toyota Hilux: an ex–U.S. Army para trooper called Kojak and our driver, a burly Iraqi in his early 30s with a DIY tattoo of a cross on his wrist. The Iraqi, I’m convinced, is trying to kill us—swerving through an endless procession of oil trucks at 90 miles per hour as we ascend along a narrow two-lane road into the bright green mountains of Kurdistan.