Kurdish all-female militia joins fight against ISIS to liberate captured women

An all-female Kurdish militia is joining the fight against the Islamic State in an effort to liberate Yazidi women in captivity and avenge those who were harmed by the jihadists.

Thousands of Yazidi women were raped and forced into marriage by ISIS when the terror group took over the Yazidi communities in August 2014.

The Shingal Women's Units (YJS), which is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), will soon join the Shingal Resistance Units (YBS) in the operation to liberate the southern Shingal District.

"We have not forgotten those Yezidi women sold in [the slave] markets of Mosul or burnt alive. We know that the people ISIS holds [...] are waiting for us to rescue them. We will not stop until we liberate our women and take revenge," the YJS said in a statement, as reported by ARA News.

Some of the captured Yazidi women were converted the ISIS' brand of Sunni Islam and were sold as sex slaves across the territories under the control of the terror group. ISIS is still holding a large number of female captives, according to Belkis Wille, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The YBS is part of a coalition led by the Shia Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), which aims to recapture the town of Tel Afar in the east of Shingal. The PMU wants to take the town to cut-off the route from Mosul to prevent ISIS from escaping to the Syrian city of Raqqa.

While YBS is mainly focused on Shingal, it has expressed its intention to participate in the operations in Tel Afar because it is believed that ISIS holds some Yazidi captives in the town.

All-female battalions are not uncommon in Kurdish militias. Some of the Kurdish female fighters believe that ISIS militants are afraid of being killed by women because they could be sent to hell.

"I think [they] were more afraid of us than of the men. They believe they'll go to hell if they die at a woman's hands," a 27-year-old female fighter told AFP in 2014.