The victories of an all-female Kurdish militia over ISIS are described in "The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice," published this month by Penguin Press.

The Book was written by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon of the Council on Foreign Relations. Excerpts from the book have appeared in Marie Claire and Military Times. According to Marie Claire, the television rights to the book have been acquired by Hillary Clinton’s new production company, HiddenLight Productions.

Fighting with the US

Marie Claire noted that ISIS had not been defeated in battle until its 2014 confrontation with an all-female militia called the Kurdish Women Protection Units (YPJ).

The women's performance at that battle in Kobani, Syria, and subsequent battles won them the respect of the U.S. Special Operations Forces, which supported them, according to Military Times. In the excerpt of her book published in Marie Claire, Lemmon said the women were followers of jailed Turkish Kurd Abdullah Ocalan, who had espoused women's equality.

Assurances to Turkey

The women continued to fight after the battle at Kobani. Chapter seven of Lemmon's book describes how the militia crossed the Euphrates River on the night of May 30, 2016, as part of an operation to cut ISIS off from the border with Turkey.

The chapter can be read at Military Times. Despite American assurances to the Turkish government that Arabs, not Kurds, would be leading the advance to the ISIS-held border city of Manbij, it was the Kurdish women’s militia that first crossed the Euphrates, according to Lemmon.

She recalled that crossing the river in rubber boats had required the women - most of whom could not swim - expose themselves to ISIS forces posted on elevated locations on the other side.

Once on the other side, the women had been responsible for setting up a road through the mine-infested terrain to the center of Manbij, Lemmon said.

'It's almost bizarre'

The excerpt in Marie Claire consists of the introduction from Lemmon's book.

There she touched upon her childhood as the daughter of an Iraqi-born father in Greenbelt, Maryland. She recalled her father being very affectionate but having fixed notions about the separate, unequal roles of men and women. For him, the idea of women's equality "could not have sounded more absurd," she said. Lemmon said it had been surprising to find male Kurdish combatants willing to accept women as equal partners and leaders. She quoted a friend as saying, "The men have no issue with them at all. It's almost bizarre."

"The Daughters of Kobani" is Lemmon's third book. Her other books are The Dressmaker of Khair Khana and Ashley's War.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED