"THEY came to my village and destroyed it and killed all the people – for no reason but being Kurdish,” said an old man to me on a visit to Iraq last week.

I was there with the House of Commons Defence Committee visiting troops and government in Kurdistan, Baghdad and then Jordan. It was odd to be there so close to Christmas – hearing all the old names and being so close to Christ’s birthplace. The wicked murders across the north of Iraq – in Mosul, Tikrit and in so many little towns and villages – brought to mind Herod’s villainous massacre of the first-born in an attempt to pre-empt any possible new ‘King of the Jews’.

Politics in the Middle East has not changed much in 2000 years.

We were there to visit British troops on the ground training the brave Peshmerga fighters; to speak to the Kurdish and Iraqi governments about the war with ISIS, or Da’ish as they prefer to call them, which is a mild insult in Arabic; and then for meetings in Damman, including with the impressive king, HM Abdullah II.

I came away with a few clear thoughts. There can be no doubt about the evil which is the Da’ish. Their pretence at religion is a cover for some of the worst atrocities known to mankind. They are an abomination, and if they are not dealt with they will change the pattern of history for the next generation. They are the greatest threat which any of us have faced at least since the Second World War, and we must be in no doubt about that in our determination to deal with them.

Second, they must be destroyed not by any kind of Western coalition, as we so foolishly tried in 2003 against Saddam. This must be a Muslim war of Muslim good against extremist evil. Western troops in combat would allow it to become an Islam against the infidel war, which is exactly what Da’ish would like us to do.

But we must do all we can to help the Peshmerga, who have halted Da’ish in their tracks, using only ancient weapons and the most basic of equipment and tactics. They need supplies (we have given them 40 heavy machine guns so far); and they need training. That is in basic infantry skills and in counter-roadside bomb skills.

We in the West cannot stand by and watch these events unfold. As we think of Christmas, we owe the descendants of Christ’s friends and relations whatever help we can provide them. That will be the true spirit of this Christmas time.