The women rebels who are ready to fight and die for the Kurdish cause

[Flabbergasted]

Source: Times UK

The women rebels who are ready to fight and die for the Kurdish causeDeborah Haynes in the Qandil Mountains


October 23, 2007


Read Deborah Haynes's Inside Iraq blog

The Kurdish fighter tied back her hair in a scarf and hoisted a rifle over one shoulder before darting farther up the rugged mountain to escape the threat of a possible airstrike.

“Get as far away from the camp as you can,” a second rebel told The Times, pointing to a steep slope and indicating the fastest way down.

A third added: “We are seen as a terrorist group, so what do you expect?”

Related Links
Turkey and the conflicts in the Middle East
The alarm was raised during a weekend visit to a small camp for women rebels in the Qandil Mountains, which straddle the border between the Kurdish north of Iraq and southern Turkey.

The women are mostly former Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters who say that they now pursue more of an educational and co-ordinating role in support of Kurdish women’s rights. Airstrikes have become a regular hazard as tensions rise between their outlawed organisation and the Turkish Government.

Women play a crucial role in the PKK, which has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for three decades in a campaign that has cost more than 30,000 lives.

In the latest bloodshed, an ambush on Sunday left at least 12 Turkish soldiers dead and 16 wounded, increasing tensions at the border where Turkish forces are massing.

Treated as equals by their male counterparts on the battlefield as well as in the political arena, women fighters are trained to use Kalashnikovs, grenades and other weapons before being dispatched in mixed and single-sex units.


Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2719702.ece

[acmavm]

1. Now there's a real twist on equal rights.

[Cleita]

2. Isn't this the part of the world where some of the Amazon legends

are placed? Are they going back to their ancestral roots?

[billyoc]

3. Wow, they're too radical for the PKK.

:loveya: :loveya: :loveya: :loveya: :loveya:

[stevenleser]

4. I'm only surprised this Turkey vs. the Kurds has taken so long to happen...

... I predicted this as one of the many reasons I was anti-Iraq war in the months and days leading up to the March 2003 commencement of hostilities.