Kurdish Female Warriors Take on the ISIS

Flag of Peshmerga

With its military victories in some parts of Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State or ISIS is able to control large swath of land on said countries. Members of the militant group are known for their ruthlessness wherever they are. They forced minorities such as Christians and Yazidis to convert to Islam or be killed. There are reports of mass rape of women and of abduction and of making them sex slaves to the militants.  Captured women are married off to the militants or are sold as bride for as low as $100. Caught enemy combatants are beheaded, crucified or tortured. Even the Al Qaeda is appalled with the extreme brutalities of the ISIS. The king of Saudi Arabia and some Muslim clerics have denounced the atrocities of the ISIS and call their actions as not compatible with Islam.

   

Lately, the Iraqi security Forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters with US air strike support are able to slow down ISIS advance and are able to retake strategic areas that were captured by the ISIS. The Peshmerga or “those who confront death” is the security force of the autonomous region of Kurdistan. In the recent conflict it is in the forefront of battling the well armed, well funded and highly motivated ISIS militants. It also take up the cudgel for their fellow Kurds including the Yazidis to protect them from the militants who consider them as “devil worshippers”, and are therefore a fair game for persecution.

Members of Peshmerga forces include women, and an all –women Peshmerga Battalion is in the frontline against the ISIS militants. The reported violations of some Kurdish women by the ISIS militants made many women that include the youth and housewives to volunteer for military service. As combatants the women can help protect their homeland and stop the ISIS militants from making them booties of war if their village is overrun. 

For the terrorists it is ironic that women who they think are inferior to men are challenging them in the battlefield.  It is believed that this ruthless group considers it to be a worse nightmare for a jihadist to fight female enemy warrior. They believe that they would be denied entry into paradise if women killed them. Indeed the Kurds know the mindset of the terrorists and turn their absurd beliefs against them.