Turkish forces have invaded Rojava 鈥 the Kurdish-majority multi-ethnic territory of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AA). In a telephone call to Turkey鈥檚 authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, United States president Donald Trump gave the invasion a green light.
Women's Protection Units (YPJ)
In 2012, the newly formed Kurdish self-defence forces took control of the town of Koban锚 from the Assad regime鈥檚 forces.
Despite all the immense challenges facing it, the revolution has survived. It has provided tremendous inspiration to people around the world. It thus has a global meaning and relevance.
Since the liberation of the last of the ISIS-occupied territory this year, the self-administered areas of northern and eastern Syria set up by the liberation forces have enjoyed secure and stable conditions. However, they have been denied representation in the international negotiations to resolve the Syrian crisis, write Ismet Tashtan and Peter Boyle.
This is a war film聽unlike any other that you will see, written and directed by a woman, focusing on a squad of the Kurdish autonomous women鈥檚 protection units (YPJ). The聽systematic female enslavement and mass rape by ISIS are its subject matter.聽
US president Donald Trump announced by tweet on December 19 his intention to withdraw US troops from聽Syria. This followed a phone call between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had often stated his intention to invade north-eastern聽Syria.聽
The Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) is an umbrella group of left-wing organisations in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran that adhere to the ideology of Kurdish revolutionary leader Abdullah Ocalan (known as 鈥淎po鈥), currently in jail in Turkey. Forces associated with the KCK have helped lead the Rojava Revolution in Syria鈥檚 north, which marked its sixth anniversary on July 19, the day Kurdish-led forces staged an insurrection.
I am almost four years old. I am on horseback with my mother as our family is being smuggled from northern Iraq across the border on a clear spring dawn. It is 1988 and the Iran-Iraq War is at its final, gruelling, violent end.
A cool breeze blows against us.
I stare up at the sky tracking the sound of the planes and anticipating the familiar silence before the bang of exploding bombs shatter the earth. The planes circle overhead, but this plane is different from the other planes we鈥檝e seen so often.
麻豆传媒 Weekly hosted a screening of the film Kurdistan: Women at War on March 9 to celebrate International Women鈥檚 Day. The film, directed by Mylene Sauloy, follows the historical development of the Women鈥檚 Protection Units (YPJ) and other similar groups defending and transforming their communities across Northern Syria.
The defeat of ISIS in Syria last year raised hopes that the long-running war that has displaced more than two-thirds of the population might be coming to an end. However, the attempted Turkish invasion of the Afrin region of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan), which began on January 20, has underlined that the war is in fact intensifying.
Women from the Tirbesipiye-Cizire Canton in northern Syria (known as 鈥淩ojava鈥 in Kurdish)聽held a women-only demonstration through the city centre on February 9.
The marchers expressed their support for the resistance by women and others in the Afrin canton in Rojava against the fascist invasion from Turkey and Islamic gangs, which began last month 鈥 and in support of the feminist, multi-ethnic Rojava Revolution.
The statement below, 鈥淢essage from the Women of Afrin to the Women of the World鈥, was released on February 3 by Kongreya Star Efrin, a confederation of women鈥檚 organisatons in Afrin (Efrin in Kurdish).
The dark clouds of 21st-century fascism are once again hanging over the heads of the people of northern Syria. As if the inhabitants of the region often referred to as Rojava haven鈥檛 suffered enough over the course of the past 7 years of war, the Turkish state has come to the conclusion that the time is ripe to pick up the fallen, bloodied sword from the corpse that is Islamic State.
Together with Salafist mercenaries carrying flags of the Syrian 鈥榬ebels鈥 鈥 one of the many components of what at one historical juncture seemingly all so long ago was a cohesive 鈥楩ree Syrian Army鈥 鈥 Erdogan鈥檚 regime vows a 鈥榮wift operation鈥 to destroy 鈥榯errorism鈥 in Afrin.
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