WOMEN WARRIORS: A NIGHTMARE FOR IS

The women had been killed in the defence of Kobani, the town that sits a few miles away on the Syrian side of the border, which for the last few weeks has made headlines as the outgunned Kurdish resistance dug in there fought off an onslaught by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, that has taken swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.

That the military juggernaut of IS was stopped - temporarily at least - in its tracks in Kobani was in part a result of US-led airstrikes. But even more significantly, it happened because of the fierce and courageous defence of the town put up by Kurdish militias comprising substantially of women fighters.

"We turned the first places they (IS) entered - the southern tip of the city and the 48th avenue - into a hell. And from now on Kobani will continue to be hell for them," was how Mayssa Abdo, known by the nom-de-guerre of Narin Afrin, summed up the cauldron of close quarters combat with IS that ­Kobani's frontlines became during those difficult, dangerous times.

Many Kurdish fighters use pseudonyms, and 40-year-old Abdo is no exception, taking her own from the Afrin region where she was born that is located, like Kobani, in Syria's Aleppo province.

As co-commander along with her male counterpart Mahmoud Barkhodan, Abdo's exploits and those of other women fighters in Kobani have become the stuff of legend.

"In order to enter Kobani the IS gangs will have to pass over our corpses,"Abdo went on the record to say as the battle raged and her fighters struggled with a paltry arsenal of light weapons that were no real match for IS's huge array of heavy weapons and artillery.

With Kurdish defiance prevailing throughout the Kobani siege, Abdo was lionised on social media. Maajid Nawaz, of the London-based counter-extremist Quilliam Foundation think tank, wrote of her on Twitter at the height of the battle: "Hero. Remember her name."

Those who know this extraordinary Kurdish woman describe her as "cultivated, intelligent and phlegmatic".

"She cares for the mental state of the fighters and takes interest in their problems," Mustafa Ebdi, a Kurdish activist from Kobani said.

For her own part, Abdo too has spoken about her female comrades and friends - "Haval" - ( in Kurdish) and what their commitment and sacrifice has meant.

"A great resistance is taking place in Kobani," she told the Kurdish news outlet, The Rojava Report. "We can say that the Kobani resistance is in particular a women's resistance."

According to the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC), as many as 35% of Kurdish troops in Syria's north are women.

Long before IS posed its own threat, female soldiers have been at the forefront of Kurdish resistance in various conflicts in the region fighting alongside men since the 1930s. Today, some 7000 volunteer soldiers have joined the Women's Protection Unit, or YPJ, which grew out of the wider Kurdish resistance militia the People's Protection Unit (YPG). Both are strongly associated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, commonly referred to by its Kurdish acronym, PKK, an organisation fighting for the rights of Kurds in neighbouring Turkey. Alongside Kurdish Peshmerga forces, the YPJ has been the spearhead in battling IS militants both in Syria and Iraq who are determined to create a cross-border caliphate. With no funding from the international community the women are reliant on the Kurdish community for supplies and food.

"Not all women fighting right now were fighters before the war started. They were working or studying. Some of them were housewives. Women in Kobani are fighting for their freedom and Kurdish men are proud of that," says Kurdish activist Hatice Cevik, echoing the views of many within the community. Their choice to join the fight, however, was often made out of necessity.

"We need to control the area ourselves without depending on the government," one 26-year-old fighter, Evin Ahmed, said. They can't protect us from IS, we have to protect us and we defend everyone … no matter what race or religion they are."

Most YPJ soldiers are unmarried, many dedicating themselves to the struggle. The group confronts traditional gender expectations in the region and simultaneously redefining the role of women in conflict.

"I don't want to get married or have children or be in the house all day," General Zelal, one of the group's leaders is on record as saying. "I want to be free."

The vast majority are young, their ages ranging from 18 to 24, though some recruits as young as 12 do chores and train alongside their elder comrades although those under 18 do not take part in frontline fighting.

For many of the young women who before had never participated in physical activity or sports, the training regime as a YPJ fighter can be gruelling. New recruits are said to have only about six hours of sleep a night, their day starting at 4am. Such discipline and training was to serve the defenders of Kobani well where the battles were often unrelenting and sleep rare. In the narrow streets and alleyways of the town, the women made up for their lack of sophisticated weapons and firepower using clever ambushes and booby traps combined with a fierce sacrificial determination.

This struggle is nothing new. For the Kurds it has been a historically protracted battle and this latest challenge posed by the emergence of IS has left YPJ volunteers in no doubt about the nature of the brutal enemy they face.

One female fighter recently brought back to Turkey for burial had not just been decapitated, but had also had her breasts cut off, said Mehdi Aslan, head of a self-defence unit on the Turkish side of the border formed to stop IS fighters or supplies slipping into Syria.

The battle against IS is one in which no quarter is given or taken by either side. One female YPJ fighter, Dilar Gencxemis, known as Arin Mirkan, blew herself up using a grenade after charging IS lines killing more than 20 of their fighters and opening up a gap for her comrades to halt the jihadists' advance.

A popular saying in among the Kurdish community is "Sehid na merin", which means "The martyr will never die" with families considering it a great honour should one of their members succumb in battle.

Executions and mutilations appear to have only strengthened the resolve of the Kurdish female fighters.

In a recent edition of Dabiq, an IS online magazine, the jihadists make an impassioned argument for the practice of "enslaving the families of the [infidels] and taking their women as concubines".

Rape and sexual slavery for civilian women and children taken is commonplace, and a painful death near certain for YPJ fighters captured.

In August, the United Nations documented the abduction by IS of up to 2500 civilians, mostly women and children, from the northern Iraqi towns and regions of Sinjar, Tal Afar, the Nineveh Plains, and Shirkhan.

According to eyewitnesses, once in captivity, teenage boys and girls were sexually assaulted by IS fighters. Some who refused to join the group ran the risk of execution.

"Women and children who refused to convert were being allotted to IS fighters or were being trafficked … in markets in Mosul and to Raqqa in Syria," the report outlined.

The prospect of facing such horrors are in part what also motivates the Kurdish female fighters.

"We will avenge … those women who were sold as slaves in the markets of the IS," a recent YPJ statement made clear.

This appears to be no empty threat. Evidence from the battlefield suggests that the feared and brutal IS fighters are often much daunted by their female YPJ adversaries. While the Islamists believe that if they die in jihad (Holy War), they will be rewarded with 72 virgins in heaven, the opposite is true if a woman kills them, then their "paradise" will be denied.

The Kurdish women fighters are said to have made use of this fear in combat, psychologically intimidating their enemies.

In the throes of battle, YPJ soldiers are said to issue a shrill ululating cry to announce their presence and strike fear into the IS fighters. Despite early misgiving among many in the West about their political motives and battlefield abilities the Kobani siege has made many US and European military analysts think again about the Kurdish resistance.

For many Kurdish women themselves though, it is not just about the war and defeating IS.

In a recent interview with New Republic magazine, one young YPJ fighter referred to as "Jazera" voiced the hopes of her comrades. "I see the Syrian revolution as not only a popular revolution of the people but also as a revolution of woman."