Band of Sisters | Explorer

less than 1m read

·Nov 11, 2024

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.

Bill Ackman: The Biggest Investing Opportunity of Your Life

How much does it cost to run a private jet?

View All

Is Iran Experiencing a Revolution?

On the 16th of September 2022, groups of women gathered around the Iranian capital of Tehran and began taking off their hijabs, holding them aloft on sticks. With crowds of onlookers cheering them on, they set fire to the headscarves, chanting slogans lik…

Most Important Lifestyle Habits Of Successful Founders

Let’s examine the facts. Yes, fact, fact, fact, fact, great, you’re fine. Yes, however, sometimes we look at the facts, and you’re not fine. [Music] This is Michael Seibel with Dalton Caldwell. In our last video, we talked about the setbacks that make fou…

Gradient and contour maps

So here I want to talk about the gradient in the context of a contour map. Let’s say we have a multivariable function, a two-variable function, f of x, y, and this one is just going to equal x * y. So we can visualize this with a contour map just on the …

Ion–dipole forces | Intermolecular forces and properties | AP Chemistry | Khan Academy

Let’s talk a little bit about ion-dipole forces. Before we think about how ions and dipoles might interact, let’s just remind ourselves what the difference is between ions and dipoles. I encourage you to pause this video and try to refresh your own memory…

Adding and subtracting polynomials of degree two | Algebra 1 (TX TEKS) | Khan Academy

So we have two different expressions here, and what I want you to do is pause this video and see if you can rewrite each of these as a simplified polynomial in standard form. So pause the video and have a go with that. All right, now let’s do this togeth…

63% of Millennials Regret Buying a Home

What’s up, you guys? It’s Graham here. So, we got to talk about this one. A new survey was just released that found that 63% of millennial homeowners regret buying their home. Now, typically when I read articles like this, they tend to exaggerate the trut…

Band of Sisters | Explorer

More Articles