Michael Enright

Known for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Knight and Day (2010), as well as roles in a number of other films and TV series, Michael Enright was born in Manchester, UK in 1964. He moved to the US in 1983 to work as an actor. After the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, Enright volunteered for military service, both in the UK and the US but was rejected by both. In 2014, he was moved by video executions committed by ISIS members to again attempt to volunteer. In early 2015, he was able to join the Kurdish YPG or People's Protection Units fighting against ISIS. He returned to the US via Mexico six months later, but was turned away due to an expired visa. He went back to Syria and fought for an additional eighteen months. He was present when the ISIS capital, Raqqa, fell in October 2017. In order to get back into the US, Enright promised to give the US some intelligence on ISIS, which he says that he did, but he has not yet been allowed into the US, having lived in exile in Belize and, as of August 2022, in Mexico. Partly the problem seems to be that the YPG is considered to be a terrorist organization, notably by NATO member Turkey. Enright has been the subject of a documentary, Yeval (2021), about his film career and combat experience.