CANBERRA, Australia — A former Australian government minister drew criticism from the foreign minister on Thursday for visiting the Iraqi front line in a battle between the Islamic State movement and Kurdish Peshmerga.

Wyatt Roy became the youngest-ever Australian federal lawmaker when he was voted into Parliament in 2010 at the age of 20. He was assistant minister for innovation when he lost his seat in elections in July.

Australia's Special Broadcasting Service on Thursday showed video provided by Roy from Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The video purported to show Roy crouching to avoid gunfire at a peshmerga position at Domez near the town of Sinjar west of Mosul a week ago as it was attacked by Islamic State fighters.

"Fifteen Daesh soldiers attacked the position that we were at for about half an hour," Roy said from Erbil.

Wyatt Roy's profile picture from his Facebook page.

Photo Credit: Wyatt Roy's Facebook page


Roy said he and British political consultant Samuel Coates could not flee because of the danger of machine gun fire, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. Five Islamic State soldiers died.

"Once they (peshmerga ) had pushed them back, they were very adamant that we get in the car and drive as fast as we could in the other direction so I drove us as fast as we could to the town of Sinjar," he said.

"It was quite obviously a serious situation. The peshmerga called in an air strike and probably within half an hour or 40 minutes, the jets were overhead," he added.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Roy did not ask for Australian government help to travel to Iraq.

"It is irresponsible of Wyatt Roy to travel to the front line of the conflict ... in a region regarded as very high risk," Bishop said in a statement.

"He has placed himself at risk of physical harm and capture and acted in defiance of government advice," she said.

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong described Roy's travel as "very unwise and dangerous."

"War zones are not places for people to act out their boyhood fantasies," she said.

Roy could not immediately be contacted for comment Thursday. SBS said he was on a flight out of Iraq.

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