The Kurds Doggedly Defend Ain al-Arab (Kobani)

The men and women of Ain al-Arab call one another “heval” – Kurdish for “comrade” – and fight with revolutionary conviction, vowing to liberate what they regard as Kurdish land from ISIS.

Amid the wasteland and destroyed buildings, a sense of camaraderie has developed among the town’s defenders who have for more than two months doggedly fought off the advances by the extremists.

File - In this Nov. 1, 2014 photo, Kurdish fighters have a short 
tea break from fighting in Kobani, Syria.
(AP Photo/Jake Simkin)

Often, members of the same family can be found on the front lines.

Nineteen-year-old Shida’s father was a fighter before her. After he was killed, she gave up hopes of becoming an artist and decided she must follow in his footsteps to honor his example. She says her mother supports her decision. One of her six brothers is also fighting, the rest of her siblings are living in Turkey.

“I will not allow the enemy to take away my land and its soil,” she said. “I will not leave my land.”

ISIS suffers heavy losses in Ain al-Arab 

An exclusive report shot by videojournalist Jake Simkin who spent a week inside Ain al-Arab late last month offered a rare glimpse of the men and women fighting to expel the ISIS extremists from the town, a predominantly Kurdish town in northern Syria by the Turkish border.

Kurdish women join their fathers in the war

Backed by small numbers of Iraqi peshmerga forces and Free Syrian Army rebels, the Kurdish fighters, whose political founders espouse a firm left-wing ideology, are locked in fierce battles to push back ISIS, which swept into the town in mid-September. In a surprising display of resilience, the Kurdish fighters in the frontier town have held out against the more experienced jihadis more than two months into the militants’ offensive, hanging on to their territory against all expectations.

Kurdish civilians endure ISIS violence 

“We are fighting for freedom,” said a Kurdish sniper who goes under the nickname Zinar, Kurdish for “The Rock.”

“Freedom isn’t something you can easily get or something that someone just gives to you,” he said. “Freedom is only achieved when you go out and get it yourself.”

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