Unlike many neighboring militaries in the Middle East, the Peshmerga allow women into their military force. Female Kurds serve on the front lines alongside their male companions. Women are able to climb the leadership ladder of the Peshmerga too, although they are capped at the level of regiment commander.
The military force also plays a strong role in helping to combat the practice of honor killings, and the organization encourages the education of women — fighters have to be literate in order to join the force.
Moreover:
MAKHMUR, Iraq — It’s an Islamic State fighter’s worst fear: to be killed by a woman.
In northern Iraq, where Kurdish forces are rapidly regaining territory held by the Islamic State, that’s becoming a real risk for the extremists.
There are plenty of female Kurdish soldiers on the front lines. They’re smaller than their male comrades, but they talk just as tough as they prowl the battlefield clutching automatic rifles and vowing vengeance for those victimized by the Islamic State.
“We are equal with the men,” said Zekia Karhan, 26, a female guerrilla from Turkey who is with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK. “Every responsibility for a man is the same for a woman. We are treated equally, and that is why we are fighting.”
For some idiotic reason, the PKK is considered to be a terrorist organization by the United States:
The leftist PKK has been fighting the Turkish government for decades and is classed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. But its fighters have been going into battle alongside Kurdish peshmerga in recent weeks and are credited by some locals with turning the tide of battle in Iraq.
The female PKK troops get fired up when they talk about the mass rapes and sex slavery that has been a hallmark of the Islamic State.
Given the current state of American culture, perhaps opposition to rape, not to mention mass rape, opposition to sex slavery, is a terrorist activity. Does opposition to rape and sex slavery offend too much our dear
"friend" the oppressive Sunni Salafi nation of Saudi Arabia?
Who are the terrorists?
Truly, who are the terrorists?
Who has toppled democratically elected officials from office in the Middle East and surrounding regions?
Who pulled off a coup d'état against the democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddegh of Iran in 1953? Who installed the brutal dictatorship of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi?
And, speaking of terrorists, who is the open-handed Big Wealthy Brother of ISIS AKA ISIL?
The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) has been aided by the continuing failure of the US Government to investigate the role of Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 attacks and its support of jihadi movements such as al-Qaeda in the years since, says former Senator Bob Graham, the co-chairman of the official inquiry into 9/11.
Who are the terrorists?
And, who is going to be held accountable for the openhandedness of our U.S. Congress (both houses) to an unknown quantity known as the Syrian rebels?