A British woman fighting with a Kurdish armed unit has died in Syria, her father has said.
Anna Campbell, from Lewes, East Sussex, died on March 15 in Afrin while with the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units, the YPJ, the BBC said.
It is feared she was killed by Turkish air strikes.
Ms Campbell is the first British woman to have been killed in Syria with the YPG or YPJ. Seven men have died in the country while fighting alongside the groups.
Ms Campbell’s father, Dirk, told the broadcaster the 26-year-old “wanted to create a better world and she would do everything in her power to do that”.
He added: “I told her of course that she was putting her life in danger, which she knew full well she was doing. I feel I should have done more to persuade her to come back, but she was completely adamant.”
The YPJ is an all-female brigade of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units YPG, which has around 50,000 Kurdish men and women fighting against IS in northern Syria.
Mr Campbell told the BBC he understands his daughter joined her Kurdish comrades when they left the fight against IS to defend Afrin from Turkish forces.
In a statement to The Guardian, YPJ commander and spokeswoman Nesrin Abdullah said Ms Campbell’s death was a “great loss”.
She told the paper: “Campbell’s martyrdom is a great loss to us because with her international soul, her revolutionary spirit, which demonstrated the power of women, she expressed her will in all her actions.
“On behalf of the Women’s Defence Units YPJ, we express our deepest condolences to (her) family and we promise to follow the path she took up. We will represent her in the entirety of our struggles.”
Conflict between Turkey and Kurdish groups has been inflamed since January.
Over the weekend, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country’s military had captured the town centre of Afrin, which was previously controlled by the YPG.
Nearly two months after launching an offensive on the Kurdish territory, he announced that the Turkish flag and that of Syrian opposition fighters had been raised in the town.
Mr Campbell said his daughter was an “incredibly principled, brave, determined, committed woman” whose death had left him “in pieces”.
“She was determined to live in a way that made a difference to the world and she was determined to act on that and do whatever it took,” he told the BBC.
“She was prepared to put her life on the line. There aren’t many people who do that.
“In retrospect I think that I probably should have done more to dissuade her (from going to Syria) but I also knew that she would never have forgiven me if I had actively prevented her from going.
“I couldn’t affect or try to influence her own perceived destiny. It was the most important thing in life for her.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here