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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAs ISIS Advances, Kurdish Female Fighters Take a Stand
In early 2013, Ruwayda, the commander of the first all-female brigade of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (or PYD), oversaw 53 fighters, working with the Free Syrian Army to stop Assad's forces from entering Kurdish neighborhoods of Aleppo.
After holding off the regime, she and her brigade returned to their home base, the predominantly Kurdish northern city of the Afrin, turning their efforts to stopping the advance of Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
"I believe in a greater cause, which is protecting our families and our cities from the extremists' brutality and dark ideas," she says. "I read Nietzsche and Marx, which they don't accept. They don't accept having women in leadership positions. They want us to cover ourselves and become housewives to attend to their needs only. They think we have no right to talk and control our lives."
Kurdish women, regarded as some of the most liberal in the region, have a decades-long history of fighting. Many have fought with the PKK, an internationally recognized terror organization that works with the YPG, in southern Turkey.
http://www.syriadeeply.org/articles/2014/08/5923/isis-advances-kurdish-female-fighters-stand/
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
freshwest
(53,661 posts)ancianita
(35,812 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)appal_jack
(3,813 posts)From what little I know of the Kurds, I like and respect them as a people, and wish them every success in achieving peace and independence within their lands. The fact that women seem to have far more freedoms in Kurdish areas compared to much of the nearby region is an additional important factor.
I hated when GHW Bush abandoned the Kurds in the early 1990's, and thought that Biden was right when he proposed letting Iraq divide into three nations (with an independent and sovereign Kurdistan) in the early 2000's. I hope that Obama (& Biden) will do all that they can to genuinely help them now.
Again, I claim no expertise on the Kurds or their culture. But this picture is inspiring!
-app
freshwest
(53,661 posts)By BASSEM MROUE - Aug 9, 2014,
A cleric read the verdict before the truck came and dumped a large pile of stones near the municipal garden. Jihadi fighters then brought in the woman, clad head to toe in black, and put her in a small hole in the ground. When residents gathered, the fighters told them to carry out the sentence: Stoning to death for the alleged adulteress.
None in the crowd stepped forward, said a witness to the event in a northern Syrian city. So the jihadi fighters, mostly foreign extremists, did it themselves, pelting Faddah Ahmad with stones until her body was dragged away...
The killings were the first of their kind in rebel-held northern Syria, where jihadis from the Islamic State group have seized large swaths of territory, terrorizing residents with their strict interpretation of Islamic law, including beheadings and cutting off the hands of thieves. The jihadis recently tied a 14-year-old boy to a cross-like structure and left him for several hours in the scorching summer sun before bringing him down -- punishment for not fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan...
Obama spoke of this in his statement on the current humanitarian mission:
On Friday, Kamil Amin, the spokesman for Iraq's Human Rights Ministry, said hundreds of Yazidi women under the age of 35 are being held by the Islamic State group in schools in Iraq's second largest city Mosul, which the militants captured in June...
The Islamic State group has "imposed incredibly restrictive rules on the civilian population which have served to make women and girls particularly vulnerable and to quite clearly discriminate against them," she said, adding that the reports of the stoning were the first the group had received out of Syria...
A lot more at the link:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/women-stoned-death-syria-adultery-24914576?singlePage=true
I emboldened the text about the locals not stoning the woman. She was stoned 24 hours after another woman was killed the same way. The link says this is not the 'Syrian mentality' and people are shocked and terrified. ISIS is in Iraq, Kurdistan and Syria. One report said they are in Lebanon, too.
ancianita
(35,812 posts)I wouldn't know where to look for an organization with such reach.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)He kept down everyone in a modern state, but they had more power. When he was removed from power, the group who seemed to be the most abused, the Shiites, took over Iraq's government and wouldn't share power with the Sunnis, discriminating against them as they had been for years.
They seem to be more radical than Saddam ever was, and he was pretty bad stuff. AFAIK, Saddam also attacked the Kurds so they were eager to leave Iraq and formed their own region. They'd been shoved out of a lot of places for centuries and wanted a homeland. They also made deals with western corporations to exploit their resources and be independent.
ISIS may consider its claim to land and resources in Iraq perfectly natural. But they have extended their vision to that of the old caliphate, the dream of some Muslims. They think they have a good idea, and want to make the world agree with them for world empire of peace. Because everyone will agree, or they will die and be out of the way. It's as fanatical as the Inquisition was.
Went off topic there, maybe, but to me they are very determined. It will take a lot to dissuade them of they idea that they get their way.
JI7
(89,172 posts)were happy when bush went into iraq .
but saddam was a very oppressive dictator and terrorized the country enough to keep them from doing their own thing.
Uncle Joe
(58,107 posts)Thanks for the thread, RandySF.
ancianita
(35,812 posts)material help they need the way he sent it to the Iraqis on "that mountain." We're talking half a population captive under a proclaimed caliphate. W.T.F.
I'm dreaming, but what a hell of a thing it would be for them to beat back ISIS.