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Syrian Kurdish women set up Martyr Rokan
battalion: NGO
23.2.2013 |
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February 23, 2013
ALEPPO,— Around 150 Kurdish women in the
war-wracked northern Syrian province of Aleppo have
set up a fighting battalion, a monitoring group said
on Saturday.
"The Kurdish popular committees have set up the
first women's battalion, comprising some 150 women
fighters. The battalion is named the Martyr Rokan
Battalion," said the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights.
"While women are now fighting alongside the rebels,
pro-regime forces and Kurdish militia, this is the
first women's battalion as such," said Observatory
director Rami Abdel Rahman.
The Observatory circulated an amateur photograph of
the battalion, showing scores of members in military
fatigues, standing in rows before their female
leadership.
"Women are now playing a major role in the fighting
in Syria," Abdel Rahman told AFP.
The women's battalion was announced in Ifrin, the
scene in late 2012 of violence pitting Kurdish
fighters against Arab rebels fighting the regime of
President Bashar al-Assad.
Assad's troops pulled out from majority Kurdish
areas in 2012, and while Kurds have been split over
the anti-regime revolt in Syria, most have chosen to
remain neutral in the conflict.
An agreement in Ras al-Ain (Serękaniyę) in western
Kurdistan (northern Syrian) on the Turkish border
last week brought an end to fighting between Kurds
and Islamist rebels,www.ekurd.net
though some activists have described the agreement
brokered by a prominent Christian dissident as
fragile.
The announcement of the Kurdish women's battalion
comes a month after pro-regime forces set up the
National Defence Forces, a paramilitary unit in
which women of all ages have been asked to
volunteer.
Anti-regime activists have also distributed images
of women fighters joining rebel ranks.
"Women are fighting on all the fronts now, though
it's possibly the Islamist rebel ranks that have the
fewest women taking part in them," the Observatory's
Abdel Rahman said.
A female activist in the coastal province of Latakia
told AFP via the Internet that women often transport
weapons and supplies for rebels as they are less
likely to be searched at army and security
checkpoints.
Over 2 million Kurds live in Syria (Western
Kurdistan).
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