Photos Kurdish YPJ/YPG 2013-2016 On the front lines of freedom

[BladeRunner87]

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[BladeRunner87]

While Obama and his various advisors were deciding whether or not the drones over Syria would only be used for intelligence gathering the Yezidis in and around Shingal/Sinjar were being wiped out by IS. The Survivors fled onto Sinjar Mountain where the last of the armed were ready to make a last stand. It was the YPG coordinating with PKK that were able to temporarily break the IS siege of Sinjar mountain and allowed for most of the refugees to escape, the Peshmerga forces also airlifted many off the mountain as well. In December 2014 a limited offensive was launched and rested control of some of the highways and some of Shingal City. For the next 11 months a motley crew of Peshmerga, YPG, PKK, and various Yezidi militias help the front line against counterattacks. In November 2015 Shingal City was finally liberated with the discovery of several mass graves.

An American who volunteered with the Peshmerga

 

[BladeRunner87]

 

[Bombardier]

An interesting set of photos and I must confess I topic I know little about at this point in time.(sadly)
I have to confess that I dont understand the draw of foreign fighters, it actually concerns me that women from the UK and other countries are volunteering and I often wonder if they fully understand what they are getting into. They have choices I guess, just wonder where they get unbiased advice from before they make the decision to go?

 

[NebrHogger]

Yes, very interesting! About 18 pics up I see what appears to be a Christian icon on the wall. These fighters are not all moslem?

 

[BravoZulu]

Yes, very interesting! About 18 pics up I see what appears to be a Christian icon on the wall. These fighters are not all moslem?

The Kurds are predominantly Sunni muslim but the Yazidi are worshippers of a pre-Islamic religion that has aspects of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. One of their angels is called Shaytan which muslims believe (wrongly) is Satan.

And no, I'm not smart at all but I can lift heavy things

 

[BladeRunner87]

An interesting set of photos and I must confess I topic I know little about at this point in time.(sadly)
I have to confess that I dont understand the draw of foreign fighters, it actually concerns me that women from the UK and other countries are volunteering and I often wonder if they fully understand what they are getting into. They have choices I guess, just wonder where they get unbiased advice from before they make the decision to go?

By 2013 the Syrian Opposition had become dominated be Islamic fundamentalist groups and the war had become a stalemate as Assad continued to retain strong footholds in his capital and the Alawite dominated coast. Into this fray Al-Qaeda jumped in, desperately in need of relevancy after Bin-Laden's assassination. In the chaos that ensued in rural Syria where govt troops had long been withdrawn to more populated areas there was a split within the Rebel/Islamist groups, ISIS which had been in its death knells after the successful American Surge into Iraq used this opportunity to make something of itself and split from its Al-Qaeda leadership. Up until this point the Kurds had primarily been on the defensive against the other Rebel Islamist groups like al-Nusra, they had enjoyed a non-aggressor relation with the Assad govt neither opposing or supporting him. By 2014 ISIS had become one of the most successful opposition and although denied be accused Govts I believe they began to get foreign support at this point. When the media picked up on them and they took on the Kurds directly along with the almost unanimous inaction by the international community to intervene in the ensuing genocide caused many Western individuals to travel to Iraq and Syria to on their own behest to pick up arms with primarily Kurdish militias. Many of them simply saw the lack of effort western govt had taken in stopping thousands of foreign fighters before them from joining "the bad guys" so they saw as acceptable at that point to do what hey felt was justified. They only ended up serving alongside Kurdish groups because other groups had become ideologically compromised or corrupted by foreign govts. I would say no more than 300 Anglophone/European(although I have heard of a pair of Japanese) ended up traveling there to fight against terrorists instead of for them. I don't think there were ever more than 100 actually in country at the same time as most of them appear to have left after only 3 to 4 months fighting one or two campaigns maybe. Some are of course still there and I' sure more are still occasionally getting over there. By the end of 2014 there were maybe less than a dozen that had gone. 2015 was probably the peak year based on the amount of social media pages that popped up. When Raqqa fell last year the majority of the ones that remained probably began their journey home. The only westerners that remain are those who adhere to the strong leftist beliefs that dominate Kurdish culture. Even before Raqqa fell to the Kurdish/Syrian Democratic Forces with coalition support this was already being turned into a new Turkish-Kurdish blood vendetta sadly.

 

[BladeRunner87]

Yes, very interesting! About 18 pics up I see what appears to be a Christian icon on the wall. These fighters are not all moslem?

As what BZ said Kurds are predominately Sunni Muslim, many of the photos I posted are of ethnic Christian Assyrian militias that work in the Kurdish lead Syrian Democratic Forces. Based on my observations though I think up to 10 percent of Kurds under the age of 30 are Christian and up to 50 percent are closet agnostic, closet christian or atheist.

 

[RL64RL]

Really enjoyed these pics -- thank you!

 

[ao_sepia]

sk-peshmerga militant foces power : helicopters,airplanes,tanks,apcs,weapons,etc more and more,better than some western europe countries!real or fake?
https://kurdistanboards.com/sk-peshmerga-t16146.html 821 pages!

 

[Chazman]

Great thread! How did I miss it?