Just over a year ago, Afshin Kobani was a teacher. Now, the Kurdish Syrian woman has traded the classroom for the front lines in the battle for Kobane, a town besieged by fighters from the Islamic State extremist group.
The 28-year-old Kurdish fighter, who uses a nom de guerre, said she decided to join the fight in her hometown when she saw ISIS advances in Syria.
“I lost many friends to this, and I decided there was a need to join up,” said Kobani, who declined to reveal her birth name. “This is our land our own and if we don’t do it, who else willIJ”
Perched on the other side of the Turkish border, the Syrian town of Kobani has been under an intense assault by ISIS for more than a month. The town surrounded on the east, south and west by ISIS is being defended by Kurdish forces in Syria.
Among those fighters are thousands of women, an unusual phenomenon in the Muslim world in which warfare is often associated with manhood.
In April, Kurdish fighters created all-female combat units that have grown to include more than 10,000 women. These female fighters have played a major role in battles against ISIS, said Nasser Haj Mansour, a defense official in Syria’s Kurdish region.
The Kurdish women now find themselves battling militants preaching an extreme form of Islam dictating that women only leave the house if absolutely necessary. Earlier this month the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors events in Syria, reported ISIS militants beheaded nine Kurdish fighters, including three women, captured in clashes near Turkish border.
After more than a year of fighting, Kobani has risen through the ranks to become a commander of a mixed-gender unit. “We are just the same as men; there’s no difference,” she said. “We can do any type of job, including armed mobilisation.”
There is nothing new about Kurdish women fighters. They have fought alongside men for years in a guerrilla war against Turkey, seeking an independent Kurdistan which would encompass parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
The campaign for Kurdish independence has been pursued mainly by leftist militant groups that championed gender equality, such as the Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey. Suicide bombings have long been part of the Kurdish women fighters’ battleground repertory.
Early this month, Deilar Kanj Khamis, better known by her military name Arin Mirkan, blew herself up outside Kobani, killing 10 ISIS fighters, according to Kurdish forces.
US-led aircraft pound ISIS group with 23 strikes
Washington: The US-led military coalition pounded the Islamic State group Saturday and Friday, with 22 air strikes in Iraq and one in Syria, the Pentagon said. Eleven of the bombings in the heavy barrage targeted ISIS units, buildings, positions and vehicles near the strategic Mosul Dam, US Central Command, which is overseeing the air war against the jehadis, said in a statement.
ISIS attacks crossing as Kobane awaits Kurd relief
Mursitpinar (Turkey): Islamic State group fighters made a new bid to cut off the Syrian border town of Kobane from neighbouring Turkey on Saturday as preparations gathered pace to deploy Iraqi Kurdish reinforcements. The Kurdish regional Government in northern Iraq unveiled plans on Friday for up to 200 well-trained peshmerga to join Syrian Kurdish forces defending Kobane in the coming week.
Kurdish news agency Rudaw said the first contingent could head to Kobane as early as Sunday but there was no immediate confirmation of that timetable.
Number of extremists growing in Germany
Berlin: The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency says the number of Islamic extremists in the country is growing rapidly. Hans-Georg Maassen says his agency estimates that some 6,300 people in Germany are adherents of a fundamentalist strain of Islam known as Salafism. Maassen told rbb-Inforadio in an interview broadcast on Saturday that the number of Salafis could rise to 7,000 by the end of the year, compared to about 3,800 three years ago.