AS a merciless ISIS fighter shot dead two of his squad, Macer Gifford assumed his death was just seconds away.
But as a bullet ricocheted off his armour, the former Brit banker’s heart pounded as he hurled himself to the ground to take cover.
It was one of just hundreds of times the volunteer fighter narrowly cheated death as he battled in Syria – and later in .
Rewind to 2014, and Macer had what many would deem an idyllic life.
Living in Battersea, central , the banker-turned-fighter had a girlfriend and was working in the foreign exchange business.
As Mosil, the second largest city in , fell and thousands of Yazidi girls became trapped on Sinjar Mountain before being murdered or sold into sexual slavery, Macer made a life-changing decision.
Then just 27, he ditched both his job and his girlfriend to travel 3,000 miles to Syria – where a bloody war was raging.
Over a traumatic three years, Macer watched friends die, jihadists use babies as human shields and civilians massacred.
Speaking as part of, The Sun’sYouTube serieswhich sees ordinary people share their extraordinary experiences, he said: “I fought ISIS all the way for those three years, from the edges of the desert all the way to the capital city Raqqa.
“It was absolutely horrifying to see this absolutely beautiful country with a history that stretches back thousands of years completely ripped apart by sectarianism.
“A death cult had emerged in Syria that was determined not only to destroy the diversity of the country, but its history, its culture.
“The threat ISIS posed at the time was monumental and unprecedented.
“It wasn’t just a case of me working for a charity and dealing with the effects of ISIS.
“I knew that the real partners on the ground, the Kurds, were the ones who had the answer to defeat ISIS and restore peace in the region.”;;
The former public schoolboy, who grew up in ruralCambridgeshire, saidin the three hellish years he spent in Syria, he was almost killed “a thousand times”;;.
Recalling one heart-stopping incident, Macer, 38, said: “I was patrolling in Raqqa at midnight and we came across a man who was calling to us to say his family was trapped in a house across the road.
“We had no idea whether that man worked for ISIS, but when my commander and a couple of other guys crossed this road, including myself, we were ambushed by an ISIS fighter with a PK machine gun.
“They shot left to right, killing the first two guys in the squad. I was the third, and my plate was struck by a bullet.
“I flung myself to the ground and crawled off the road to return fire and seek cover.
“And that unleashed 24 hours of hell.
“I had to run back onto this road where there were a lot of ISIS fighters shooting at us to grab hold of my commander, to drag him to safety.
“Sadly, he would die in my arms just hours later.”;;
Macer told how dozens of ruthless IS fighters suddenly swarmed their position – with many of his comrades brutally killed.
Brave Kurds desperately tried to fend off the attack by shooting one by one as they ran up the stairwells.
Macer added: “The U.S. Air Force was on our side and they were able to air strike all the ISIS positions around us, including tunnels where they were emerging just 10 meters away from where we were hiding.
“So for 24 hours we fought without water, which was by far the worst thing as far as I’m concerned, because every time the Americans dropped a bomb, it kicked up all the dust, which was absorbed into our lungs.
“We were coughing so much. Some of the guys were getting nosebleeds. They were coughing up blood because there was so much.
“They had drunk nothing for 24 hours and there was so much dust in the air.
“And then finally we grabbed the bodies of our comrades, put them in the back of Humvees, jumped in and were able to escape.
“But there were moments in time where we were very close to death.
“I was scared, particularly when your life is no longer in your hands, that you don’t have any chance to seek cover, that you really are just pinned in the open with people shooting at you.
“And there have been many moments where people that I know, good friends of mine, have gone one way and died. I’ve gone the other way and survived. It is pure luck sometimes.
“Much better people than me, men and women, have died because they kicked down the wrong door or they went on a mission that I was asked to sit behind for.”;;
After relentless fighting in Raqqa – the epicentre of ISIS – for six months, Macer rejoiced as the city was liberated in October 2017.
“As I sat there on this rooftop after six months of fighting, I saw them [terrorists] limp out of the hospital, broken and destroyed.
“These fanatics, these absurd, psychopathic fanatics were once so full of hate and so full of victory in those early days, thinking they were going to conquer the world.
“They were completely deluded. And I saw them for the first time utterly broken, and I realised they were going to flee into the desert.
“The Americans, the Brits, the Kurdish forces that I’d been fighting alongside would continue to chase them and hunt them down.
“But my time in Syria had come to an end, because the sacrifices I was making away from my family, the worry it was causing them, it had to be for a reason.
“And after three years, I could no longer see a good enough reason for me personally to be there, so I came home.
“Coming to terms with your experiences after seeing such brutality and giving up so much of your life is very difficult.”;;
Returning back to the UK, Macer settled back in by taking up a Master’s in international relations, peacebuilding and security, and writing his first book – Fighting Evil.
Then in 2022, as Vladimir Putin’s forces and tanks massed at the Ukraine border and all-out war loomed, Macer felt the urge to help.
Days before Russian troops invaded, Macer went to Ukraine to dish out aid – and was on the ground when the first bombs slammed into Ukraine.
Macer travelled back to the UK to rally a team of comrades who went back and trained dozens of people in combat casualty.
But after witnessing horrific scenes, he felt compelled to pick up his rifle again and joined the 131st Separate Reconnaissance Battalion.
Macer fought in the fields between Mykolaiv and Kherson, the islands of Dnipro and the forests of Lyman – and came under severe bombardment.
Fortunately, he escaped any serious injury.
One of Macer’s most important roles as part of the 131st was gathering intelligence by risking his life on the frontline,looking for minefields and preparing the way for Ukrainian assaults.
But back home Macer’s dad was battling Parkinson’s and was rushed into hospital, so he decided it was time to head home at the start of start of January 2024.
Macer said: “I rushed back to see my father and sadly on my birthday, 20 days later, on January 21 he died.
“And it gave me a new perspective on life. It made me realise that I’d gone out to Ukraine with a purpose. I’d fought. I’d raised money. I’d built infrastructure.
“If you go out without a plan to a war zone, you will lose yourself. And I didn’t want to lose myself. I wanted to go out, complete my mission, come home and move on. And that’s exactly what I’ve done.”;;
Macer said his life now revolves around writing, his family and fundraising. Last year he raised around £75,000 that went out to units in Ukraine.
Despite everything he’s been through, Macer revealed he would be prepared to return to the battlefield if ISIS “rose up tomorrow”;;.
And Macer warned this is a very real possibility.
The return of ISIS could be devastating. There are 70,000 prisoners that are just as fanatical today as they were when they were first captured.
“I fear a resurgence from the Islamic State,”;; he said.
“I have watched Syria over the last seven, eight years, since I was last there, with growing horror as Britain has played second fiddle to the Americans.
“The Americans have taken their eye off the ball, have taken resources out of Syria and Iraq.
“My biggest fear is that unless we give people in Syria something to fight for and to dream for, ISIS will simply return.
“The return of ISIS could be devastating. There are 70,000 prisoners that are just as fanatical today as they were when they were first captured.
“There are people who have committed the most appalling human rights abuses. They have committed genocide.”;;
Macer added: “This death cult is something that won’t just go away unless we start dealing with the root causes of it.
“If they were to break out of those prisons, it could grow as quickly as it did in 2014 when I first went out.
“So we could be at square one literally within a year. I would definitely go out and fight again.
“If the IS rose up tomorrow and became a threat to the Zidi, Christian, and Kurdish communities, the Arab communities of Syria, Iraq, it would take very little for me to go out there again, pick up a rifle, work with the local people and fight back.”;;
