There are many enemies of the Islamic State but a group they fear more than others is a group of Kurdish women fighters who set out to reclaim their cities with an undaunted ferocity.
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These women warriors are part of the People’s Protection Units, or Yekîneyên Parastina Jin (YPJ) which was founded in 2012. The YPJ account for up to 35 percent of the Kurdish troops fighting the Islamic State from northern Syria. Numbers of women fighters could range as high as 10,000.
YPJ warriors work alongside their male counterparts (YPG) to force Islamic State militants out of their lands. Men of the Islamic State fear them so much because they believe that dying by a woman’s hand doesn’t lead to martyrdom but instead to an eternal afterlife in hell.
Iranian.com on Dec. 19 posted a short “60 Minutes” documentary led by Australian television presenter Tara Brown. In the documentary, Brown observes and reports from alongside the women fighters who work day and night to battle the Islamic State, and describes what she saw there as “triumphant and terrible.”
YPJ’s women have pushed Islamic State militants back thousands of miles and reclaimed hundreds of towns and cities. Yet, although they have stationed themselves in the Kurdish north, pushing Isis State militants farther and farther out, they still run the risk of militants making their way back across.
“We are ready to sacrifice ourselves to protect humanity, to save society, the civilization here,” said one of the YPJ fighters in an interview with Brown. Many women warriors of the YPJ feel the same and work tirelessly to that end.
*originally published on the now defunct Examiner.com
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