There’s a pretty solid list of pathways for Aussie politicians who’ve lost office. Taking up a corporate gig? Likely. Working for a non-profit, or in an advocacy role? Seemingly even moreso. Retirement? Look, after a long enough stint in the corridors of power, it’d be hard to say no to livin’ off that sweet parliamentary pension.
Former Liberal MP Wyatt Roy chose that final option when he was booted from office in the last Federal Election, and he’s been sipping comically-large cocktails outta coconuts ever since. Wait, nope, that’s not true: the man who was once Australia’s youngest-ever MP in the House of Reps has been on the front lines of the ISIS conflict in Iraq. Really.
Speaking to SBS, Roy said he was witness to last Thursday’s deadly firefight between 15 ISIS troops and
Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the
Domez region, located in the northern pocket of the embattled nation. Five
Islamic State militants
are thought to have been killed in the incident, which reportedly ended after a
Coalition airstrike attacked their position.
Via Google Maps.
According to Roy, he left the area when things started to get really hairy. The risk of “a 50-cal bullet, or if they had bigger RPGs, or a mortar round hitting us” understandably became too much for Roy, British political consultant Samuel Coates and a translator, who hightailed it back to the city of Sinjar after Peshmerga forces pushed the militants back.
He said the Coalition-backed forces “were very adamant that we get in the car and drive as fast as we could in the other direction.” Just after the trio had left, Roy reckoned “the Peshmerga called in an airstrike and probably within a half an hour, forty minutes, the jets were overhead.”
Counter-terrorism and radicalisation experts have raised some Q’s about why the bloke saw it fit to have a gander at one of the most volatile regions on planet Earth, but Roy said he just was in the region to gain an appreciation of the conflict that he couldn’t while serving in parliament.
It’s not yet known when his trip to the region will come to an end, but a quick dive through his social media accounts reveals some pretty pedestrian happy-snaps that gave nothing away about his intense journey:
We fully recommend you scope out some of the images of Roy in the region right here. Baffling, baffling stuff.
