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Kurdish troops. Kurdish women on the front line

In the Peshmerga units - “going to death” or “looking into the eyes of death,” as this word is translated from Kurdish, not only men, but also women fight in northern Iraq. The Kurdish Self-Defense Forces are also active in Syria.

Female Peshmerga Special Forces

As you know, the attitude towards a woman well reflects the character of the people themselves. For this reason, Kurds are probably the most liberal among Muslims. Of course, all the hard stuff homework women do.

Kurdish women do not cover their faces. In the crowd they mingle with men and can always have their say in the general conversation. In the absence of her husband, the mistress of the house has the right to receive a guest, communicate without feigned bashfulness or shyness of Turkish or Iranian women, and share a meal with him with pleasure. When the husband appears, the woman, as a sign of attention to her guest, does not leave him until the husband has tied the horse and entered the house.

There can, of course, be no question of imprisoning a woman.

The Kurds have one characteristic feature: the absence of special women's quarters (harems), which makes the Kurdish woman free. Kurd never sought to limit women's rights. He considers her worthy of equal trust, capable of enjoying the same rights and responsibilities as a man.

WITH psychological point In his eyes, a woman has the same inclinations, the same virtues and the same vices as a man.

Young people know each other very well. Marriage is preceded by real courtship on the part of the applicant. Romantic feelings reign in the hearts of the Kurds...

All these features national character showed, the only ones in the East, women's military detachments. Apart from Kurdistan, there are only a few countries in the world where women are allowed to participate in combat (in the Middle East, this includes only Israel).

Appearing in 1946 in the mountains on the border of Iran and Iraq, the Peshmerga are still fighting, and the women of Kurdistan have been fighting since the first days.

Separate women's detachments have been formed, and there is also a brigade.

Most female soldiers are unmarried girls up to 30 years old.

Of the 40-50 thousand Kurdish fighters in Syria, 35% are women. Most of them are unmarried, although, according to the representative of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, Redur Khalil, there have been cases when even mothers took up arms and joined the ranks of self-defense.

“I came here to protect my land and my people,” says Rosarin, a fighter in the women’s self-defense unit. - Our relatives support us. Before joining the squad, I completed training. They taught me how to shoot - I had never used a weapon before. from the Islamic State group are there, so if we see any movement, we shoot. They thought women couldn't fight them, but here we are. We are not afraid because we know what we are fighting for. I am 19 years old, I went to 11th grade at school. But I dropped out of school to fight."

According to the commander of one of the units, Chichek (her name means “flower”), “men fight with sheer strength, while women fight with their minds, careful preparation. We know when to use weapons and when to use cunning. And then ", women by nature hate violence and war. But we are forced to defend ourselves. We were born and raised with this thought in our heads."

These all-female units instill fear in IS fighters who believe that if they die at the hands of a woman, they will be deprived of paradise.

Radical ISIS imams often use Koranic verses to recruit new militants, in which jihadists killed in battle are promised a Garden of Eden where they will be greeted by 72 virgins.

Fighters ISIS believe that if killed in battle they will go to heaven, but only if they died at the hands of a man.

From the very first days of training, women are warned that they cannot surrender into captivity, and they do not surrender. Each of them carries a grenade with them, as a last resort.

If the militants manage to capture a prisoner, she dies a terrible death.

Women's military units included in Peshmerga, undergo intensive training in special units, where representatives of the “weaker” sex are taught to shoot from sniper rifles, wield a Kalashnikov assault rifle and throw hand grenades.

During the defense of the hero city of Kobani, if not for the YPG women's brigade, the city would not have survived.

ISIS militants burst into the city, there were fierce street battles for 2 months, the women fought beyond all praise.

There is data. that more than once or twice they engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the militants.

Misaa Abdu, a Kurdish female fighter known to everyone as Narin Afrin, led women's brigade in the city of Kobani, from the very beginning of hostilities.

The most dangerous soldiers, according to journalists, serve in the Kurdish women's self-defense units. Kurdish warriors are fighting against the main global threat - terrorists " Islamic State" and "Al-Qaeda in Syria" directly in hot spots.

MOSCOW, March 29 – RIA Novosti, Maria Efimova. The world-famous Kurdish women's self-defense units are celebrating their fifth anniversary. During this time, the women of Syrian Kurdistan gained freedom that one can only dream of in that region. RIA Novosti spoke with Kurdish combatants about the Turkish operation in northern Syria, political plans Syrian Kurds and feminism in military field conditions.

"Radical Women's Revolution"

The world was recently reminded of the women's self-defense units fighting for the rights of the Kurds and recapturing the northern territories of Syria from IS*, together with the men's people's self-defense units, by the death of 26-year-old British woman Anna Campbell under Turkish bombs in Afrin.

Anarchist, feminist, animal rights activist - before arriving in Syria, nothing connected her with the Kurds. However, according to Anna's father, she took the problems of the Kurdish people to heart and admired that type social order, which was established in Rojava (Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, or Syrian Kurdistan, a self-governing federal formation, proclaimed in 2012). RIA Novosti interlocutors in women's self-defense units claim that in their ranks there are several dozen girls from Europe, the USA and Australia.

"Kurdish women's battalions self-defense is a unique phenomenon. It's no wonder they attract activists from all over the world. Firstly, women's units showed themselves brilliantly in the battle against terrorists, whom the whole world considers “forces of evil”, opponents of any progress. Secondly, their participants are ready to fight for women’s freedom by any means, including armed forces, Melissa Delal Yanmis (alias Delal Kurdi), a representative of the Kurdish diaspora in Austria, who returned from Rojava last year, told RIA Novosti. — Kurdish ideologist and founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party Abdullah Ocalan teaches us in his writings that a free life is impossible without a radical women's revolution that will change people's thinking and social life generally. Anna Campbell was a true revolutionary and a true internationalist. And she became another spark in this revolutionary fire, like other foreigners who joined our ranks. I hope Russian women internationalists will also join this fight."

“I am a feminist, like most Kurdish women. A Kurdish woman is not afraid of death - death is afraid of her. We do not admit defeat. Victory and progress are our motto. Therefore, women all over the world stand in solidarity with us,” she reports in an interview with RIA Novosti A 23-year-old student named Cihan (fighting name Kecha Afrin - Daughter of Afrin), who is now in Afrin in the Kurdish battalions.

Kurdish Marxism

The Kurdistan Workers' Party was founded in 1978 as a Marxist-Leninist party with a national slant. There were plenty of socialist movements in the Middle East, but it was the PKK and its offshoots that became the most feminist-oriented. For Kurds, ethnic self-identification is more important than religious one, so among them the ideas of gender equality have taken root much better than in Muslim society.

Thanks to the role that the Kurdish women's battalions played in the struggle for national self-determination and the battle against Islamic radicals, the women of Kurdistan now enjoy freedom and rights comparable only to the status of Israeli women. Until recently, the Kurds practiced early forced marriages, female circumcision, honor killings, and polygamy. However, the authorities of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria proclaimed six years ago, in an effort to rely on the widest possible strata of the population, legislatively put an end to all this (although, of course, this still cannot be done without it, especially in rural areas).

According to the interim constitution of Syrian Kurdistan, women must hold at least 40 percent of all government positions. Public institutions are required to have two co-chairs - a man and a woman, as are the executive councils of all three regions of Syrian Kurdistan.

However, Kurdish activists believe that there is still work to be done and talk about the need to eradicate patriarchal customs, demand equal pay and equal representation in the judiciary (today only five percent of the 250 judges are women).

"Romance novels are strictly prohibited"

Up to 40 percent of Kurdish fighters fighting in the Middle East region are women. In March 2013, the first women's self-defense battalion was created in Afrin, and a year later such units were formed in other parts of Syrian Kurdistan. Today, the number of women's self-defense units reaches 25 thousand people (two thousand women are reported to serve in the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces).

The battalions were replenished, among other things, by representatives of other nations and faiths: Arab Muslim women, Yazidis and Assyrian Christian women freed from the rule of IS* joined. These are mostly young, unmarried women, but there are also those who left their children in Turkish refugee camps to participate in the armed struggle.

Kurdish women's battalions played a huge role in the liberation of the cities of Raqqa, Kobani and Manbij from militants, and the rescue of thousands of Yazidis besieged by ISIS on Mount Sinjar in Iraq in August 2014. Some of these operations involved Kurdish female suicide bombers blowing themselves up near IS positions.

"The women's and men's armies have their own commanders, respectively - a man and a woman. Men cannot give orders to women. Even the highest ranks of the male Kurdish formations must first contact the female commanders so that they can then lower the command below. But female commanders can order male fighters,” says British Kurd Ozkan Ozdil, who conducted last year in Syrian Kurdistan as a field medic and participated in the liberation of Raqqa province from IS*. “We interacted closely with women’s formations - we played sports, participated in exercises, prepared food, and did cleaning. Unless they slept in different barracks. We were like one big family. Ranks meant nothing in communication unless we were talking about military orders. Women, in my opinion, are very brave. Maybe even bolder than men in some ways. I'm just fascinated by them. They dance and sing. You can always hear them from afar. Even ISIS fighters were afraid of them."

According to RIA Novosti's interlocutor, in military field conditions with romantic relationships everything is very strict: “Marriage in general is seen as an instrument of patriarchy. Of course, people fall in love and find time for dates and sex. But in general, romance novels are strictly prohibited. And if someone finds out, the couple will be kicked out of the units. And this is a big shame.” .

“In the region, girls, especially among Sunni Arabs, are married off very early and to those whom they have never even seen. So the opportunity to choose their own destiny is a huge privilege; they value it and do not want to return to the patriarchal way of life,” - Ozdil continues.

Behind last years In Syrian Kurdistan, the number of divorces has increased significantly. Almost immediately after the announcement of the federation, the Kurdish authorities for the first time gave a woman the right to demand a unilateral divorce and leave, taking her children, as well as half of all property. Local women's advice local consultations have resulted in several hundred divorces being recorded in Kobani, with its Kurdish majority, and even in the city of Manbij, which has a predominantly Arab-Muslim population and where the new order has provoked resistance from local tribes and religious authorities. Among the main causes of divorce are polygamy of the husband, domestic violence or too early marriage. Girls who do not have time to give birth to children often join Kurdish women's battalions after divorce.

“The husband and family can demand that a woman not get a divorce, blackmail her, but in this case many turn to women’s self-defense units, of which everyone is afraid,” Ozdil concludes.

"Real ethnic cleansing"

During Operation Olive Branch, which Ankara has been conducting in northern Syria since January of this year, on March 18, Turkish troops, with the support of Syrian opposition units, captured the city of Afrin, which was under Kurdish control.

RIA Novosti's interlocutors claim that the Kurds will try to recapture Afrin from Turkey. However, in the coming months they will clearly not have time for this. Any day now, according to information coming from Ankara, an attack on Manbij will begin, and after that Turkish army will move east from the Euphrates deep into Kurdish territories to take control of areas without a Kurdish majority, such as Ras al-Ayn or Tel Abyad.

The United States, which supports the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, sent its military to Manbij to train Kurdish troops to send a message to Turkey that the attack is not desirable. However, it is unknown how far the United States is ready to go to protect the Kurds; it is extremely undesirable for Washington to spoil relations with a NATO ally.

RIA Novosti's interlocutors are confident that sooner or later the Syrian Kurds will win the war with Turkey and return Afrin, preserving self-governing autonomy in northern Syria. "We don't need independent nation state— it proved to be ineffective. According to Abdullah Ocalan's doctrine, a system of democratic confederalism is necessary. All communities living in this territory - Kurds, Arabs, representatives different religions and peoples, must take part in the fate of the region and govern the cantons of Rojava on an equal basis, including on the basis of gender equality,” says Ozdil.
*Terrorist organization banned in Russia.

The Kurds are now taking part in a separate line in the civil war in Syria, who have been trying to build an independent state at the junction of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria since the 1840s. But this is not what is interesting first of all, but this:

The TEV-DEM “Movement for a Democratic Society” (Kurdish: Tevgera Civaka Demokratîk), which forms the basis of Kurdish self-government, makes anarchists around the world cry with envy. Strict separation of religion from politics, freedom of speech and religion, direct democracy, people's militia instead of the army and police, equality of men and women (including in terms of service in self-defense units), nationalization natural resources- it's all there. At the same time, the Kurds claim that until recently they did not want to intervene in the war on anyone’s side, but were only defending their land.

Although the Kurds in Syria are no more than 10%, they were able to create one of the strongest rebel armies, which controls almost the entire northeast of Syria (and this is not some desert, but mostly fertile lands plus oil-bearing areas - up to 60% of Syrian reserves) , and successfully defends himself against the traveling Islamists from the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant who are attacking him.

Combat wing of PYD and DBK - People's Self-Defense Units (Kurdish: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG)); At the same time, the YPG leader claims that the units are not officially associated with any political party or ideology. Also noteworthy is the fact that unit commanders are elected by direct democratic voting. As of July 2012, the PYD had between 4,000 and 5,000 fighters on its side; according to the PYD leader on December 1, 2012, this number could increase to 10 thousand.

Since late May 2013, the YPG has been fighting mainly against Islamists and Free Syrian Army fighters trying to gain control of the Kurdish areas of Syria - thus, the Kurds play the role of a “third force” in the Syrian conflict. However, the PYD was accused by the Syrian opposition of being loyal to B. Assad (and even that the Assad government deliberately gave northeast Syria under the control of the PYD). Let me clarify: the Kurdish militia of Iraq is called “Peshmerga” (Kurdish: Pêşmerge) and has much in common with the YPG, but is not the same structure with it.

YPJ (Kurdish: Yekîneyên Parastina Jin‎) is the YPG women's brigade, created in 2012. Kurdish media admit that “YPJ troops are of vital importance in the defense of Kobani. The actual photo report about them was taken from 04/30/2015. But I was able to obtain a higher resolution photo.

Most female soldiers are unmarried girls under 30 years old

According to the BBC news agency, up to 30% of the Kurdistan Self-Defense Units are women.

Surprisingly, many of them explain their decision to go to war by the possibility of self-determination. Thus, 21-year-old Ruba Jazera says: “I understand the Syrian revolution not only as a revolution of the masses, but also as a revolution of the female part of these masses, and therefore I consider myself an integral part of it. Women have been suppressed for more than 50 thousand years, and now we have the opportunity to have our own right to make decisions, the right to self-identification.” Many girls say that they went to fight because they did not have the opportunity to get a good education, and, accordingly, there were no prospects for a prosperous, relatively independent existence. “We are not like a regular army. We are a revolutionary movement. We are not afraid of death,” says 23-year-old Gulbaad, writes

“What can these people from Daesh possibly show us? داعش Daesh is the Arabic term for ISIS) who are coming to fight us? We have roots here. We have a right to be here; therefore we have the right to defend ourselves. If we lose our land, we will lose our honor, and if we lose our honor, we will lose our right to speak out about our history and our language,” one of the girls said in an interview.

An important fact in organizing women's groups is that Islamists try to avoid fighting with girls. The reason for this is religious doctrine. The fact is that it is honorable for an Islamist to fall in battle, but if he dies at the hands of a woman, then, according to the interpretation, he will go to hell.

Symbol of Kurdish resistance beheaded

Known as Rehana, the girl inspired Kurdish fighters with her courage, personally killing more than 100 extremists. She was a symbol of the Kurdish resistance movement, writes The Daily Mail. 10/28/2014 ISIS militants took photographs of one of them holding a severed female head in his hands. Extremists claim that this is Rehana's head.

Some women go to war with their husbands. This is not prohibited, but starting new relationships at the front is not allowed.

Before enrolling in the squad, all girls undergo a mandatory six-week course military training. “All these women undergo the same serious combat training as men, under the leadership of the government army and a number of special forces. The results of female soldiers are in no way inferior to those of men, so dozens of our wives and daughters fight shoulder to shoulder with us on the front line, even as part of male detachments. In the near future, it is planned to send some of our female fighters to carry out special missions in Kirkuk,” says one of the commanders.

The girls in the self-defense units of Kurdistan are brave and strong-willed women who defend their land and families. Islamic State militants are afraid of dying at the hands of these women, since in this case they will not go to heaven, but to hell. Their strength attracts volunteers from other countries. However, not all volunteers are men, which is good news.

Israeli Gil (Jill) Rosenberg
A former Tel Aviv resident and Canadian and Israeli citizen, Gil Rosenberg joined the Kurdish militia in November 2014. Speaking on air on Reshet Bet, the young woman explained the motives for her action by saying that she had decided to make a feasible contribution to the fight against terror, as well as to help the Kurds in their fight against the Islamists. Gil noted that she served in the IDF and has combat experience.

Canadian model Tiger Sun, 46, left her motorcycle, her friends and family to fight ISIS. Having been on the front line, she spoke about the horrors she saw in battle. So, for example, before her eyes, a little girl died after being blown up by a mine, because... the Kurds had no medical education and failed to provide medical assistance.
She also told how she felt when she stepped on the charred fingers, but the body of their owner was not found.
Tiger fought as part of the Women's Protection Units for 4 months, but constant malnutrition and the heaviness of her equipment forced her to return home.

Samantha Johnston is a mother, veteran and active member of the Kurdish People's Protection Unit (#YPG) Foreign Volunteer Brigade #FuckISIS

Joanna Palani is a 23-year-old Iranian-Kurdish girl from Denmark who dropped out of college to join YPJ. She fought in Kobane, a Syrian-Kurdish city that was liberated from ISIS in January 2015. Upon arriving home from Brussels, she was arrested under a new Danish law that came into force in March 2014. It gives police the power to confiscate passports and impose travel bans on Danish citizens suspected of planning to travel to Syria or Iraq to volunteer against ISIS. According to the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, about 125 Danes are fighting in Syria.

Delal Sindy left her job and studies in Sweden and went to Iraqi Kurdistan to help people become free from ISIS. The girl is half Swedish, half Kurdish. She mainly helped former militant prisoners and worked with women and children who had escaped after being sold into sexual slavery.

And finally, I will tell you about an unusual girl who defended her homeland - Ceylan Ozalp. YPJ women's unit fighter Ceylan Ozalp Once surrounded, she chose to commit suicide rather than be raped by ISIS terrorists.
When she ran out of cartridges, she took the pistol out of the holster and put it to her temple, then pulled the trigger.
Ceydan Ozalp was only 19 years old, she died maintaining her honor and dignity.

DUSHANBE, May 2 – Sputnik, Ruben Garcia. Last Monday, May 1, armed groups of Kurds recaptured the Syrian city of Tabqa (Es-Saura), located next to the Euphrates hydroelectric station, from militants of the Islamic State banned in Russia.

Its inhabitants created a system of people's assemblies and unique communes, a combat-ready armed militia, and commodity exchange based on cooperatives as a local economic system.

And they gave broad rights to women. This was facilitated by completely objective reasons.

At one time, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is closely associated with Syria, even before he was imprisoned in 1999, came to the conclusion that for the victory of his movement, which had been greatly weakened in battles with regular Turkish troops, it is not at all shameful to attract women to the party.

The same conclusion was probably reached by the commanders of the Syrian militia, where there was an acute shortage of men, especially commanders, after the advance of the Caliphate’s troops into the interior of the country.

This is how the Women's Self-Defense Units emerged, becoming one of the most capable units of the Kurdish armed forces, known as Peshmerga. Moreover, they occupy not only ordinary, but also command positions. Thus, one of the two commanders of the Asayish security forces (Asayîş RojavaKurdistanê) is a woman, Aitan Farhad.

YUJ itself consists entirely of representatives of the fairer sex; there is no place for men there.

Retribution for terror

What do the Kurdistan Self-Defense Forces represent?

These are infantrymen who do not have heavy weapons. The bare minimum military unit has from 3 to 6 people capable of autonomously performing a variety of combat missions, mainly patrolling the area and reconnaissance.

The larger unit, the baluk, consists of approximately 30 people. Next is the Tabur, an analogue of a modern battalion.

Many volunteers are howling on the side of the Kurds Western countries mainly representatives political movements leftist.

Formally, the Kurdish armed forces are subordinate to the High Command and the Military Council, which meets every six months and develops a plan of military action.

The militia is voluntary. Commanders there are elected by direct vote and regularly hold meetings where it is possible to challenge the actions of commanders.
Girls over 17 years of age who wish to join YUJ can undergo a two-week military training course, but they have the right to fight on the front line only after reaching 20 years of age.

A girl from the Kurdistan Women's Self-Defense Units with a grenade launcher

The self-defense units are fighting desperately. Women - doubly so. Taught by the bitter experience of Raqqa, where thousands of Kurdish and Yazidi girls and women were, if not killed, then sold into sexual slavery, YUJ fighters often talk about their desire to take revenge on the terrorists who torture and sell their sisters like cattle.

They manage to take revenge well. Upon the first request, the browser displays many photographs where girls are captured against the backdrop of the bodies of killed terrorists.

It is not difficult to assume that for the fundamentalists from the Caliphate, the very possibility of being shot not just by an infidel, but also by a woman is like a spit in the soul.

The resistance of the Kurds is all the more stubborn because they simply have nowhere to retreat - they are unlikely to receive a warm welcome in Iraq, and for the Turkish authorities, every Kurd is a potential terrorist.

Moreover, Syrian militias openly accuse Ankara of supporting ISIS in the fight against the Kurds.

“Syrian Kurdistan can be a model of resistance to terrorism and the violation of women’s rights. And Erdogan wants to establish the dictatorship of the Turkish Sultanate on our territory,” noted indignantly a member of the Turkish Parliament from the People’s Democratic Party Ayşe Basaran at a press conference at the Rossiya Segodnya news agency dedicated to fight against terrorism.

There are indeed reasons for such loud statements. At the end of April, the Turkish army fired at the positions of the Kurdistan Workers' Party. The attack killed 70 people. 4 days later, on April 29, after new airstrikes in northern Iraq, another 14 PKK members were killed.

And the head of Turkey does not rule out new missile attacks.