All-Female Christian Militia Takes on ISIS in Syria

All-Female Christian Militia Takes on ISIS in Syria

AFP/Reuters/Getty Images)

Babylonia has no regrets about leaving behind her two children and her job as a hairdresser to join a Christian female militia battling against the Islamic State group in Syria.

The fierce-looking 36-year-old in fatigues from the Syriac Christian minority in the northeast believes she is making the future safe for her children.

"I miss Limar and Gabriella and worry that they must be hungry, thirsty and cold. But I try to tell them I'm fighting to protect their future," she told AFP.

Babylonia belongs to a small, recently created battalion of Syriac Christian women in Hasakeh province who are fighting IS.

They are following in the footsteps of Syria's other main female force battling the jihadists – the women of the YPJ, the female counterpart to the Kurdish People's Protection Units or YPG.

So far the new force is small, with around 50 graduates so far from its training camp in the town of Al-Qahtaniyah, also known as Kabre Hyore in Syriac, and Tirbespi in Kurdish.

But the "Female Protection Forces of the Land Between the Two Rivers" – the area between the Tigris and Euphrates waterways historically inhabited by Syriacs – is teeming with women eager to prove their worth against IS.

It was actually Babylonia's husband who encouraged her to leave Limar, nine, and six-year-old Gabriella and join the unit whose first recruits graduated in August.

Himself a fighter, he urged her to take up arms to "fight against the idea that the Syriac woman is good for nothing except housekeeping and make-up", she said.

"I'm a practicing Christian and thinking about my children makes me stronger and more determined in my fight against Daesh," added Babylonia, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

Syriac Christians belong to the eastern Christian tradition and pray in Aramaic. They include both Orthodox and Catholic branches, and constitute around 15 percent of Syria's 1.2 million Christians.

Before the conflict began in March 2011, Christians from some 11 different sects made up around five percent of the population.

The unit's first major action was alongside the newly created Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Kurdish, Arab and Christian fighters, which recently recaptured the strategic town of Al-Hol.

Kevin Whitson January 18, 2016 

These Christian Women Were Tired Of Being Terrorized By ISIS, So They Turned The Tables BIG Time

If it were a Hollywood movie, some might say, it couldn’t be more dramatic.

All-female brigades of Christian fighters are taking on ISIS and all-female ISIS brigades of suicide bombers. In a storyline arguably meant more for a script, the true-to-life actions of the Female Protection Forces of the Land Between the Two Rivers are making head-waves against ISIS forces. The Syriac Christians Brigade is an all-female fighting force made up of Syrian Christian women and mothers who refuse to submit to ISIS, or Daesh as they like to call them.

The women all speak and pray in Aramaic, the native language of Jesus of Nazareth from the Bible. In contrast to the suicide bombers that some female ISIS recruits aspire to become, the Syriac Christians Brigade hopes to hone their battle skills, with some even desiring to become snipers.

Some of the women were encouraged to become fighters by their husbands who also serve as soldiers. “I’m a practicing Christian, and thinking about my children makes me stronger and more determined in my fight against Daesh (ISIS),” said a female fighter named Babylonia. Her husband encouraged her to fight “against the idea that the Syriac woman is good for nothing except housekeeping and make-up.”

Remembering the massacres in 1915 of Syriac, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians was a good enough reason for some of the females to join the fight against ISIS. Eighteen-year-old Ithraa told AFP that “We are a community that is oppressed by others,” and that she and her female comrades hope to prevent “a new massacre like that committed by the Ottomans… when they tried to erase our Christian and Syriac identity.”

As Western Journalism has reported, ISIS fighters fear being killed by a woman on the battlefield. According to the tradition followed by these terrorists, death at the hand of a female is a one-way ticket to hell.


Source:Newsmax.com
  http://www.westernjournalism.com/