Band of Sisters | Explorer

The Peshmerga number roughly 150,000, and they're revered in Kurdish society. When ISIS first attacked, they were taken by surprise and driven back in some places. Since those early days, they've transformed themselves into a powerful fighting force—one of the few in the region that's been able to stop the militants.

As I follow this story deeper into Kurdistan, it's what I find next that leaves the strongest impression: a band of sisters who've taken up arms to defend their people. This is also their fight, and as women, they've got the most to lose. On the outskirts of Sulaymaniyah, this female-only battalion has its headquarters.

I meet them at a firing range where raw recruits practice target shooting. I watch as the soldiers dig through crates of loose ammunition, load their magazines, and gather at the firing line. Their fingers twitch on the triggers as they wait for the order to fire.

Most of these women never expected to be fighters, but if ever there was a time to take up arms, it's now. Before they even fired a shot, weapons started to break. Within ten minutes, we had seven AKs lying on the ground that had broken, jammed, or become unusable in one way or another.

How is standing there next to me, and he just looks at it and sighs, and says, "How can we fight ISIS with this?" But they don't have a choice. When I ask each of these soldiers, she says she is ready to die for Kurdistan.