It's under Isis control," said Mujtaba, another young Shia militiaman, as he sped towards the frontline.
The Shia militiaman said they were Isis fighters brought from the front.
They think we are like Isis but we are not like them," the militiaman adds.
WAR photography is frequently associated with black-and-white images taken in the heart of action, such as Robert Capa's shots of the Allied invasion of Normandy and the death of a militiaman in the Spanish civil war.
Last year, your correspondent met David Matwok, a young militiaman in the pay of Sudan's Arab government, who was lying on his back on the savannah with both legs broken by bullets.
"We receive calls from Hizbullah warning us that [Jabhat al-] Nusra are moving over there, or hiding over there," says 65-year-old militiaman Antony, who has the weathered look and build of a drill sergeant, his index finger tracing the distant ridgeline.
"Wherever you find Sunnis and you give them weapons, you will find IS," says Bashar, a militiaman.
As a result, say American officers, they can judge the importance of a captured Sunni insurgent or Shia militiaman by the number of high-ranking Iraqi commanders calling up to demand his release.To address this dilemma, Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's Shia prime minister who has promised to reach out to Sunnis, this week put forward an initiative aimed at creating a less sectarian security force.
Innocent, a young militiaman, was so terrified by the sight that he surrendered to the Rwandan army.
Which, as any self-respecting Montana militiaman will tell you, is exactly what you would expect.
"SEE that man?" said an excited Somali militiaman, pointing at a yawning, middle-ranking American diplomat.
