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President Obama insists there are no American combat troops in Iraq and Syria, and that there are no plans to deploy any. But we meet an American ex-military man who’s gone to fight with the Kurds against Islamic State.

Also, the Royal Air Force’s first openly transgender officer has a message for the Pentagon regarding the US military’s ban on transgender people serving. And, a former American soldier shares her experience of transitioning from male to female during a deployment to Afghanistan. Plus, a visual journalist uses a pencil - not a lens - to capture images of war in Afghanistan. A photographer documents the surreal landscape of the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay. And a Sikh-American combats stigma and prejudice by making people laugh.

(Photo: Former US soldier Jordan Matson, who joined a Kurdish militia group fighting IS in northern Syria. Courtesy of Jordan Matson)