The role of women in war is typically dominated by images of women as victims, peace-makers, or home-makers to be protected by male fighters. But in Kobani, the Kurdish town in northern Syria now besieged by ISIS, women are taking up arms to resist the jihadist advance—fighting alongside men, and even commanding mixed units of men and women. Houzan Mahmoud of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) argues that these women are on the frontline of the struggle to defend and advance freedom in the face of political Islam across the Middle East and beyond.

Photo via ROAR Mag.

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