Kurdish women have been fighting alongside men in the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to wrest Mount Makhmur in northern Iraq back
from Islamic State (IS) jihadists, whose treatment of women makes the fight
especially personal for the dozens of female fighters on the mountain.
IS-led militants have overrun large areas of Iraq, and the
group also controls significant 
territory in neighbouring Syria, enacting its
harshly restrictive and brutal interpretation of Islamic law in both countries.
territory in neighbouring Syria, enacting its
harshly restrictive and brutal interpretation of Islamic law in both countries.
Tekoshin, 27, says she and other women are fighting the
group not only because of the threat it poses to Kurds but because it “is
against women’s liberation”.
Some 50 women are among the fighters on the mountain from
the PKK, which launched an insurgency for self-rule in Turkey in 1984 and has
been listed as a terrorist group by 
countries including the United States, but
began peace talks in 2012.
countries including the United States, but
began peace talks in 2012.
At the entrance to the mountain town of Makhmur, “The
Islamic State” was scrawled on a one-storey concrete house, but hastily painted
over since the PKK took it back.
Tekoshin says women fought side by side with the men in the
battle to force out the jihadists.
Kurdish women have fought alongside men for years in the
PKK, its Syrian offshoot the People’s Protection Units (YPG), and to a lesser
extent, the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces.
Asked whether she was married, Tekoshin laughs: “Most of us
here aren’t married. I joined the PKK when I was 14 years old.”
Tekoshin says the PKK does not forbid its fighters from
marrying, but that it is generally frowned upon.
She also finds amusing the idea that the jihadists may have
been surprised by coming face to face with women fighters.
While Tekoshin says she fights best with her Kalashnikov
assault rifle, Saria, 18, shyly says she feels equally comfortable with both
light and heavy machineguns and sniper rifles.
Saria grew up in northern Syria, and her two brothers and
her sister are currently fighting against IS there, she says, adding that both
her parents were in the PKK.
On the mountainside, the PKK fighters live a communal life.
Normally they take turns cooking, but in wartime, male volunteers from nearby
Arbil city take care of feeding the fighters.
For Shimal, a 26-year-old fighter, the anti-IS battle is as
much about solidarity with women who have fallen victim to the jihadists as it
is about the Kurdish national cause.
IS “turns women into slaves,” she says.
IS “turns women into slaves,” she says.
Source: AFP
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