Aiden Aslin: From Syria’s hellhole to the ruins of Mariupol

Aiden ‘Johnny’ Aslin was defeated, battered, and wounded, with a swollen eye and a horrible cut across his forehead, and his darkest worries of being a tool in Putin’s demented ‘bulls**t’ propaganda if he was kidnapped by the Russians sadly came true this week.

The British former care worker was paraded on Kremlin-backed television from a secret location after surrendering after running out of ammo in Mariupol, the beleaguered southern port city that has become the enduring image of Moscow’s invasion for many.

Aslin, who looked to have been tortured, was characterised by Rossiya 1 TV news presenter Andrey Rudenko as a’mercenary’ who had ‘fought on the side of the Nazis in Ukraine’ as he was asked a series of questions about his motivations for taking up guns.

Fighting alongside Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade, which had teamed up with the Azov regiment, a neo-Nazi unit of Ukraine’s National Guard accused of war crimes in the east, Aslin was accused of’shelling kids in Donbas for years’ before being forced to denounce his Ukrainian army comrades as ‘criminals.’

Now facing the terrifying prospect of Aslin being carted to Russia and executed, the 28-year-distraught old’s family maintained today that he is not a mercenary and pleaded with Putin to follow the requirements of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

They also stated that Aslin, who has lived in Ukraine for the last four years, has a Ukrainian girlfriend, and holds dual citizenship, is not a volunteer, but a ‘legit’ marine who has made the former Soviet republic’s war for national survival his own.

For those unfamiliar with Aslin’s story, it is a stunning shift – from taking up weapons against ISIS maniacs in one of the deadliest battles to have gripped the Middle East in recent memory.

Aslin, who was born in Newark, Nottinghamshire, in 1994, worked as a care worker before joining the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), the US-backed militia that had pioneered the fight against ISIS in Syria, to combat the jihadists in 2015.

After learning about ISIS’s crimes and persecution of Kurdish people, and persuaded that Britain was not doing enough to bring them down, he took the unprecedented choice to go towards the sound of gunfire.

In an interview about his experiences battling the Islamic State, Aslin added, using a different acronym for the terror network, ‘I endorse UK air operations against IS.’ Anyone who doesn’t believe me is welcome to come here and witness for themselves what a difference the air strikes make.

‘Daesh is a cancer.’ If you don’t treat it, it will continue to grow. Protesters against the war have no notion what type of people Daesh are. They are not negotiable.’

That April, he booked a plane ticket from Gatwick to Sulaymaniya, Iraq, where the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) held its headquarters in the Qandil Mountains.

However, before boarding the plane, he was detained by UK Border Police, who questioned his claim that he was going on a backpacking trip.

He subsequently stated how he ultimately confessed to authorities that he was joining the battle against ISIS and was permitted to continue his journey.

Aslin served in the ranks of the YPG in Syria for around ten months, where he was associated to the Lions of Rojava unit and was part in the Coalition-backed attack that drove ISIS out of al-Hawl.

Prior to his arrest in the United Kingdom, Aslin described dodging artillery and incoming bullets as his unit played a key role in capturing enemy territory near Mount Sinjar – to which tens of thousands of refugees fled after being driven out by ISIS.

In al-Hawl, the Lions of Rojava were fighting ISIS terrorists when Aslin’s homemade armoured vehicle came under direct enemy fire.

‘I was heading towards IS militants who were about 60 metres away,’ he explained. ‘I was in a makeshift tank. I heard rounds striking the tank’s exterior and waited for rocket-propelled grenades to land.

‘The area also had a lot of homemade explosive devices, so we had to watch where we walked as well as look out for Daesh.’ They also attempted to counter-attack using vehicle explosives.

He landed at Heathrow on February 3, 2016, after negotiating with the British Consulate in Erbil because he had lost his passport, and was arrested on the plane and taken to Nottinghamshire Police headquarters for questioning over a suspected terrorism offence – all while his family was waiting for him.

Aslin was detained for 30 hours as police interrogated him about allegations that he had ‘engaged in the planning to fight against Daesh’ and ‘had goods for terrorist objectives in Iraq/Syria.’ He was then detained and released on bail before being cleared of all charges in October 2016.