KOBANI: WOMEN ARE ON THE FRONT LINES AGAINST ISIS From NBC News By Richard Engel (edited for length) KOBANI, Syria — The tip of 26-year-old Viyan Peymans rifle pokes through a hole in a wall on the front line of Kobani, a Syrian city that has been under ISIS attack for the last two months. Peyman is laying on a mattress, dressed in fatigues. The room, in what until recently was a family home, is now a snipers nest, dirty and darkened by a thick curtain. She hides behind heavy sandbags, scanning for her next target in the street below. Her finger is always on the trigger. She fires shots sparingly to save ammunition and to hide her location. Kobani is now a city of snipers, and, less than 200 yards away in an adjacent building, an ISIS fighter has his weapon trained this way. ISIS is just across the street, and when I see them, I shoot them, Peyman says. She speaks eloquently in Kurdish with poetic flourishes. She was a teacher before the war. As women we need to stand shoulder to shoulder with our male comrades and fight ISIS, she says. During four days in the city, it appeared to NBC News that the Kurdish fighters, mainly of the Peoples Protection Unit and the Womens Protection Unit, control about half of Kobani. ISIS controls the other half. We stand and fight, especially here in the Middle East, where women are treated as inferiors, she says. We stand here as symbols of strength for all the women of the region. Peyman has already bled for her city. She was shot twice — once in the leg, a second bullet in the stomach — but she returned to her post. For ISIS, crushing these secular, pro-U.S. fighters would be a major propaganda victory. But fighters like Peyman are putting up a fight the militants appear not to have anticipated. They are strong women and brave men standing their ground and defending their homes. For now, at least, Kobani is holding on. Carlo Angerer of NBC News contributed to this report. Photo: Kurdish sniper Viyan Peyman
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 02:27:40 +0000
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