Angry Planet - The women warriors giving ISIS nightmares

Episode Date: December 17, 2015

Islamic State has many enemies, both around the world and in the Middle East. But there’s one group of fighters that the men of Islamic State fear more than others because, rumors say, to be killed by them doesn’t lead to martyrdom, but to an eternity in hell. These fearsome warriors are members of the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units, and in this week’s War College, we look at the role they – and other women – are playing in the war against Islamic State.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast? Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. The opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the participants, not of Reuters' news. There is a general belief, at least amongst the Islamic State militants, that if you're killed by a woman, you're not going to go to paradise. so this makes them particularly a threat.

Islamic State has many enemies, around the world and in the Middle East. But there's one group of fighters that the men of Islamic State fear more than others, because to be killed by them doesn't lead to martyrdom, but to an eternity in hell. These fearsome warriors are members of the Kurdish women's protection units. And in this week's War College, we look at the role they and other women are playing in the war against Islamic State. You're listening to War College,

a weekly discussion of a world in conflict focusing on the stories behind the front lines. Here's your host, Jason Fields. Hello, and welcome to War College. I'm Reuters' opinion editor, Jason Fields. And I am Matthew Galt, contributing editor at War is Boren. Today, we're speaking with journalist Benedetta Argentieri. She spent the last few years covering the wars

in Iraq and Syria, and she does it from the female perspective, which can't make life easy, I'm going to guess. Benedetta, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. So in the West, there's this narrative that Kurdish forces deploy women onto the battlefield in combat roles and that women are equally in the fray? And I just wondered how true that was. I think that first we need to make a clarification because we tend to believe the Kurds as a monolithic group, which they're not. They are very much politically divided. And within those groups, there are many differences. I think that the ones who are deploying a woman actually in combat, there are the YPG.

And the YPG is the People's Protection Union, mainly operating in Syria and some part of Iraq, such as. And they have a whole female unit called YPJ that became a very, very famous troop pictures and stuff of like journalists that went over there. The YPG is also linked with the PKK, the terrorist group, like so-called terrorist group, for NATO and the US and Turkey as well, of course. And because of this connection, their ideology overlapped in a lot of ways. the PKK was the first one to actually start this all-female unit kind of concept. And so this is why you have these two groups that operate both in Iraq and Syria that deploy a woman.

It's not really that true for the Pashmerga, because the Prashmerga, who used to have a woman on the front lines, now they are kind of more protective of their women. So that's not that true. So they mainly have logistic or roles or that kind of things or intelligence, but they don't actually fight. Gotcha. And so actually, I guess we should spell out the PKK and I guess if YPG's allied to it, they're actually communist slash socialist, right? I mean, they're not an Islamic group. No, they're not.

They're a secular group. And within the groups, there are like several different. different religions that people are actually observing. And they used to have a Marxist kind of group, but now they're shifting to a more new concept, a political concept, which is called Democracy Confederalism, which is a kind of, they kind of abandon that Marxist ideas

to a more open to democracy kind of thing. It's a very complicated, complicated like concept, but it was their leader, Abdul Oshlan, that in prison, because he's got in prison in 1999, started this shift. Okay, well, that makes sense. I guess I was just, think he was worth mentioning in that. I mean, because part of socialist ideology has been equal rights for women anyway, and I just thought it might be helpful to explain some of the differences. It is, especially in a place like the Middle East, that's a kind of a revolution to have like female kind of a feminist revolution within the revolution. So like one of their ideology is,

well, what Abdullah Ochoon is writing is that there is no real revolution of the press if first there is a woman liberation movement. So the two are very much linked again. All right, well, Benedetta, can you tell us about some of the female soldiers you've met? What were they like? What did they fight for? Well, I was very lucky because I was able to meet several women fighting and several trips. I mean, I think that the first encounter was in Syria last year with a sniper unit, a whole sniper unit, devastation and Till Kutcher, which is at the border, the Iraqi-Syrian border. And it was a group of seven, and originally there were 20. 13 got killed in the past years. So there was a German girl, a German woman, was the leader of the unit, and she's originally Kurdish, Arin, but she was born and raised in Cologne.

And when she saw the Isis advancing, she decided to drop out of school because she was in med school and link up with the YPJ. The important thing is that most of these women, when you talk to them, they are fighting not just Isis. or Daesh, as they call them, as they call the Giadi, but they're fighting for freedom and equality for women in the Middle East and around the world too. So they want to show the women are capable to do exactly the same jobs that men do, and they are equally good at it. So this was, it's a perspective that most of them have on the battlefield. And also another woman I met that I really like to mention her is she's called Beryton, and I met her in Cynger in March, and she's a PKK commander who joined the PKK about 10 years ago. And she arrived in Cinder as soon as ISIS attacked and how many of the civilians were fleeing the area to actually flee. And her duty when I met her was a human rescue.

And so she would, what her job involves was gathering intelligence within the city of Singer and tried to understand where civilians trapped with Isis or enslaved were kept. And during night she would sneak in with like five other women with just her AK-47 and two-hand grenades. and liberate them. And in the 10 months of war, I mean, in 10 months that she was there, she was able to free more than 100 people. So she was a pretty incredible person to talk to. They have actually their own agenda at the same time that, I mean,

it's just another reason to fight. It's not just for their homeland. When you join one of these militia groups, there is a big part of indoctrination as well. So both men and women have to study the genealogy, what is they're called genealogy, and the translation is the science of women. And this is part of their ideology. So again, as you said, they just don't fight.

They fight for a whole thing. Well, so I was going to ask, are they famous in the area? I mean, are the people they fight with or the people they fight against? Is there a particular notoriety around them? I think there is. And especially after the great fascination that the West had with them. So they became more famous in the past year or so. Because, again, these female units were established before even this work kind of started.

But now they became pretty famous. And there is a mutual kind of respect between, let's say, the woman Peshmerga and the YPJ. And especially women Pashmerga admire them, and they think that they are very good at what they are, what they do. So, yes, I think that they became very famous. And also they became very famous amongst Islamic State. we've seen, I mean, at least I've seen in the past, like Islamic States publishing pictures of certain kind of certain snipers of women, you know, and they wanted them dead. Because there is a general belief, at least amongst the Islamic State militants, that if you're

killed by a woman, you're not going to go to paradise. And so this makes them particularly a threat. Right, they're an important piece of the psychological battle and the propaganda battle against Islamic State, right? Absolutely. And to kind of switch tracks just a little bit, what is it like, what is life like for women on the other side in the Islamic State? I know that this is something else that you've written about quite a bit. Yes, I did write about the Islamic State woman, and I think that we tend to victimize women who join this Islamic State. We tend to say, or poor girls, they've been brainwashed, they've been tricked into this. And this might be true for some of them, for the younger woman that actually joined the Islamic State.

But I'm sure that there is a part that actually joined Islamic States because they wanted to join it. They wanted to join the jihad, and they wanted to have an adventure within strict Islamic rules. Because, you know, out of the 500 women, Western women that are believed that have joined the Islamic States, some of them, yes, they joined because they wanted an adventure, and probably because they didn't have anything at home that, you know, was good enough for them. There is a misconception that most of the women from the West are really young. Actually, I was talking to a professor at Duke University. She's Jane Hockerby. She did many studies on a woman joining the Islamic State. And she said to me that the average is 25 years old.

And most of these women are well educated. And some of them hold degrees and stuff. So it's very difficult to understand the psychology of women that actually are. And it's true for men and women. So there are, and also there are a lot of misconceptions. about it. And there are actually women who join Islamic State who, whether or not they're fighting on the front lines, they are given Kalashnikov rifles and are set, I mean, at least, you know, according to what I've read, honestly, it's not certainly firsthand experience. But they

at least keep their sort of morality police for women, for the other women. Yes, you are referring to the Alcansa Brigade, which is a female. Yes, that's right. Yes, it's a, yes, it's a a female unit that serves as moral police, and they are operative in Raka and Mosul, so in both of the big cities. And they are being trained, not just with the AKA, but also with sniper weapons. And their first duty is to impose the Sharia law on women. And some stories I heard are horrible, horrifying, because they torture women who were not dressed properly or don't observe properly the sharia law or maybe, you know, some part of their skin is visible and they and they and they do pretty horrible things to them and to each other.

Yeah, the New York Times actually just had a whole article that they ran on, I think, Sunday. It was fascinating looking at three women who came, were now in refugee camps, but had been among that brigade talking about actually how they, if someone was dressed with their, you know, was just a little too tight. I mean, it was the same black robe, but it was just a little bit too tight. You know, you could be brought in and some people were tortured after that. Sorry, Matt, you wanted to say something. Benadeta, going back to something that you'd said just a little bit ago that I thought was really fascinating,

you said that from your perspective, these women are looking for a sense of adventure within the strict and safe confines of Islamic law and Islamic teaching. And I think that's interesting and speaks to how these Western women get enticed into going over there. But I also was wondering about what is the message that they're receiving from Islamic State specifically? Like, how is Islamic State targeting them and drawing them in? What does the propaganda look like? What does the messaging look like? I think, well, the propaganda is very fascinating. Also, I think it's something worth mentioning is that many arrests that are being made.

in Europe are recruiter and are recruit, mainly women recruiters that are targeting women and young women. Also because we need to, you know, understand that they, in the ideology of the Islamic states, this state has to be populated, so they need women to come along. And I think that, you know, it's like there are several kind of different propaganda. And in January, in 2015, the Alcansar Brigade, that did publish a manifesto and it was a woman under the Islamic State and in which they say, okay, there is the Sharia law here and so you cannot go outside by yourself. You have to obey

the Sharia law and everything. But also you can be a teacher, you can be a part of a society, you can be a doctor. And but their main duties, I mean, is to get married to the Jiyadi. And they promise to women, they promised woman to, you know, get, when you get married, you will get married to a Ghiadi who will adore you and it will, you know, do everything for you and you'll be happy because this is what you are supposed to do. I don't know if it does, it makes sense, but it's a very complicated propaganda and agenda. And also, I just read a paper actually published by the Reuters Institute by this person called MHA. Rukhali, and what it says that ISIS-us-usuf woman also because they know that the propaganda will be picked up by the Western press. So it's a kind of double-sunder. And I think it's an interesting interpretation on how ISIS propaganda machine actually works. Speaking to that, you've also

covered the Italian Lady Jihad, and I think that also kind of, that's an interesting story that that speaks to a lot of what you're talking about, and especially the West's tendency to, like you said, look at these women as victims. And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about her and her story. I think the lady she had is anything but a victim here. I mean, she is called her name, is Maria Julia Sergio. Then when she converted, she chose the name of Fatima. And she's a 29 years old woman who came from a really Roman Catholic. family. And she moved from outside Naples to Milan when she was like 12 or 13. And when at university, she converted to Islam, she said in several interviews before actually joining the Islamic State,

it's because her family friend brought back from some trips, some paintings of Islamic paintings and everything. So she started studying and she loved Islam and she converted. So her conversion started as a moderate, but she used to wear a hijab. And then a few years later, through the local mosque, she radicalized because she met other woman. This is what the police said. And when in June 2013, she started saying that, saying that, she wanted to go to Syria. To go to Syria, she needed a husband. So she went up to the recruiter and said, please find me an husband to go to Syria. After a few months, they found this guy who is a Bosnian guy,

and they arranged the marriage. So they married in September 2013, and a few days later, they made a trip to Turkey and crossed into Syria. But the interesting thing is that once she joined Islamic State, she used to talk to her family on a daily. basis and her family converted as well, all her family. So mother, father and a sister and a young and the older sister actually. And once she was in Syria, she started convincing them saying, you need to come and join us. The Italian police actually arrested their whole family before they could make the trip. But I thought it was very interesting because we heard also the conversations that they had over Skype and over the phone. And he said,

seemed very much that she wanted them to come because she needed to prove to the Islamic state that she was a good Muslim. So all her family. So my understanding is that if you go and join the Islamic State and you're able to bring your family, then you kind of scale up the hierarchy kind of thing. And so this is why she was very keen on this. So do you know what her fate is? Is she still in Syria? From what we know, she's. She is still in Syria. She's about 30 kilometers from Raka. But in the meantime, her mother died actually in prison.

And here her father said that she's evil and he wanted to convert back to Roman Catholicism. And also because I think that she is going to trial very soon and this is a way to try to mitigate what the court will say. Well, that's definitely not, I had not heard a story exactly like that before. Can I ask you one more question going back to the Kurdish female fighters? I'm just wondering what kind of lives they have other than fighting. I mean, do they have normal family lives and are they an integrated part of the community? Or is it, you know, like, because the only stories you can, and that pop into my head are like Amazon Warriors, you know, they're supposed to be a breed apart and you know I mean the mythology around it you don't necessarily think of people you know

women who are out fighting as having children you know I mean the the modern conception is a little different so about especially the YPG and the PKK there are really really strict rules both men and women so if you become a guerrilla fighter you cannot have any romantic relationship whatsoever so So this is a really, really big part of their ideology because you're kind of married to the cause. So if you start having a relationship that will, you know, take away tension or even, you know, tension or anything from the battle. So this is a very important thing. Their lifestyle is mainly amongst themselves. So whether they are in active combat or not, they have like duties.

And also they talk once a day about their feelings. So, or about, so they have like in the afternoon, if they're not actually fighting, they have like a kind of an assembly in which each of them stands up and criticize one another. And I thought it was a very fascinating way to lie to leave. Sometimes they do, okay, so the men and women are completely distinct. so they even, you know, their bases are different. They have some moments in which they meet and they talk and but usually they have very disabled life. Okay, so yeah, very different than female soldiers in the Western tradition.

I mean, whether it's Israel or in the United States where female units are becoming more integrated with male units. I mean, yeah, there's nothing really special beyond. I mean, the whole point is to make the groups integrate men and women. women to integrate, and this is actually a matter of making people very distinct. Interesting enough, I was talking to a veteran the other day, and he was telling me that this kind of strict rules about relationship is very good, because sometimes what you see in the American Army or other army in the world is that then it becomes a mess. If you start having interrelationships, it can really affect your way to combat.

So I don't know, maybe it's more of a kind of manpower kind of point of view, but I can see what he says, that having relationship in active combat can be a little bit tricky. I've got one more question for you, Benedetta. What about women fighting on the front lines for Islamic State? This is a very tricky subject and very open to a debate, because the main problem, I think, that ISIS doesn't want to openly admit that women are fighting. And but throughout my trips, I've collected several evidence that there are women on the battlefield on ISIS's side, and some of them are actually fighting. So the first thing is that ISIS has a very big group of Chechens, and the Chechens woman have been fighting forever, basically.

And so if you had like this part of fighters coming, for sure women will not stay behind. But I think most importantly is that I talked to several like foreign fighters and particularly one Italian fighter who joined the Kurds. And he actually showed me pictures of women's bodies on the ground. And the interesting thing, there were three women. The interesting thing is that they were not obviously dressed with any cover or anything. They weren't covered. They were actually dressed like men, exactly like men. And because ISIS, all of them, they have.

have like kind of long hair. They really blended in from afar, from far away. He also, he was telling me that he believes that there were many women on that front and which was the Ahazaka front, so near Raka kind of thing, because they had a huge group of YPJ, so a woman fighters. So, they thought that sending a woman fighting woman was better than the men fighting men. And also, as we previously said, women have been trained to weapons, to snipers, to stuff. And it does make sense that when in use they call them, even in the manifesto that we cited before, the Alcancer Brigade manifesto, they say that if in Amir allows, you know, in times of need and stuff, an emir can make a fatwa and ask them and ask the woman to change. join the fight. My personal takeaway of this is that there are women fighting, not a lot, but some in certain kind of front, but I think it really depends, again, of the hierarchy that they are in.

And that depends very much on their husband. So the more up in the hierarchy, the husband is the more chances that she has a really active role into ISIS. whether it's fighting or whether it's like ideologically. I don't know if you remember. There's been a raid in May 2015 by Delta Force in Syria. It was the successful, actually, a raid in Syria by the U.S. Army, and they killed the Minister of Finance of ISIS. And in the raid, they actually arrested his wife, Umsayyat,

who's now in prison in her bill. And she is believed to have had... a really active role into ISIS, whether it's slavery or even like in the organizations and logistics. So it really depends again. But what is true is that ISIS isn't talking of publicizing that at all. Definitely a very different side of the story. ISIS do enslave women quite a lot. So like let's try not to mix out the two things.

But it's also true that, you know, at least from the evidence I collected that there are some woman fighting. What was it like covering this? I mean, you know, when you're actually inside the country. Is it hard as a woman to do it? Were people welcoming to you? I've never had really a problem, especially when I am bedded or stayed with the YPJ and the PKK, because you stay with a woman. So what happens is even if we were a group of two, three journalists, I was staying with a woman. And I honestly, I never. felt so safe in my life. I would go anywhere with this woman because I recognize that they are really good what they are. And as a general, I think that with them, I never had any problems. With the Pashmuranga, you can see that they have a more kind of Western mentality, if you see what I mean. So they were like very welcoming, but also objectifying me, taking like 500,000 picks,

of me on the front with them and so that was a little bit tricky sometimes because I had to stop them and saying okay guys now I really need to do my job and I need to write I need to talk to you I cannot take 500 selfie with you because I can't but other than that I never had really any problems I really felt like a superstar I have to say all right well again thank you Benadette I really appreciate all your time thank you so much much for joining us. Thanks for having me. That was the 20th episode of War College.

Thank you to everyone who listens to the show and for the wonderful reviews on iTunes. We're going to take a break for a couple of weeks, but we'll be back in January to talk about how weapons programs go wrong and why the B-52 may become the first war plane to see a century of service. Next time on War College. One of the contributing factors to this and for why programs can cannot get canceled as something that we refer to as political engineering, which is spreading

out the subcontracts for each of these weapons systems. So each member of Congress has a stake in the success of the program.