The women who fought ISIS are now battling Damascus for equality

The SDF’s Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) helped spearhead urban battles from Kobane to Raqqa, and women now hold command billets over mixed-gender units.

In a training compound in Syria’s northeast this summer, a cohort of all-female special forces ran live-fire drills, vaulted from American armoured vehicles, and took orders from a woman in charge. They’re part of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — the U.S.-backed coalition that broke the Islamic State’s territorial caliphate six years ago and now administers roughly a third of Syria, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Women aren’t just present in the SDF; they’re embedded in its doctrine. The SDF’s Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) helped spearhead urban battles from Kobane to Raqqa, and women now hold command billets over mixed-gender units. “It’s very difficult for jihadists to accept a role for women as equals to men,” said Rohlat Afrin, who oversees female fighters within the Kurdish-led administration. At a recent unification meeting in Damascus, she says Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, pointedly declined to shake her hand — a small gesture that revealed a vast gulf.

A fragile deal is already fraying

Washington and European capitals see reconciliation between the SDF-run northeast and the new government in Damascus as essential to stabilizing post-Assad Syria. On paper, a deal struck six months ago promised to integrate administrations and security structures. In practice, it’s wobbling under mistrust, sporadic clashes, and incompatible red lines.

The core dispute: the SDF wants its forces integrated as a bloc into a national army, preserving command structure and women’s leadership. Damascus insists on individual absorption — and says the military is for men only. “Women are able to apply to the police force, but military recruitment is strictly for men,” the information ministry declared. That stance collides with the northeast’s “social contract,” which mandates gender parity across public institutions and co-leadership (one man and one woman) of government bodies. “This is one of the red lines that no one will accept to change,” said Siymend Ali, spokesman for the YPG, the SDF’s main component.

Turkey adds pressure from the north, threatening action unless the SDF fully dissolves into state structures. The U.S. is pressing both sides to de-escalate and keep talking — a delicate balance given Ankara’s red lines and Washington’s counterterrorism priorities.

A movement built on sacrifice — and memory

In Hasakah’s cemeteries, tombs of women who fell fighting ISIS are adorned with portraits in uniform. In city centres, murals memorialize fighters like Arin Mirkan, who blew herself up on a strategic hill in Kobane rather than surrender, killing militants in her last act. Her legacy lives in women who took her name as a nom de guerre — a YPJ rite in which many adopt the names of fallen comrades or hard-fought towns.

One fighter, Arin Jonda, 28, from Kobane, says the path meant foregoing family life for the front. She fought in Afrin against Turkish-backed militias in 2018, then in Sari Kani a year later, and against ISIS elsewhere in the northeast. Another, who now goes by Kurdistan Kobane, joined after ISIS massacred more than 150 people in her hometown. She recounts house-to-house battles in Tal Abyad and a near-fatal ambush that forced her unit to retreat and re-enter from the rear to dislodge militants. For them, the YPJ’s credo — “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” (“Women, Life, Freedom”) — isn’t a slogan. It’s a lived ethic.

Exact numbers are classified, but independent estimates put SDF strength around 50,000 fighters; commanders say roughly 20% are women. Their continued prominence is precisely what unnerves Damascus’s new rulers and some of its Islamist-aligned factions.

Damascus promises reform — with caveats

Sharaa’s government has tried to signal a pivot. Days after its March meeting with SDF leaders, it unveiled an interim constitution that cites women’s rights and free expression for a five-year transition. It appointed a woman to lead Syria’s central bank and named a female governor in Sweida. Yet the cabinet that followed had just one woman among 23 ministers, and the newly created Women’s Affairs Office stumbled out of the gate when its director suggested women “aren’t capable of leadership” without training.

Personnel choices have deepened mistrust. In May, Damascus tapped Ahmad Ihsan Fayyad al-Hayes (Abu Hatem Shaqra) — sanctioned by the U.S. in 2021 over the assassination of a Kurdish female politician and links to ISIS — to command the army’s 86th Division overseeing parts of the northeast. “These are all bad signs,” Afrin said. “Having this person in this position is a message that the SDF doesn’t exist, the female fighters don’t exist.”

The stakes: security, legitimacy, and the shape of the state

Beyond symbolism, there’s a hard security calculus. ISIS cells are regenerating in Syria’s central deserts and along the Euphrates. The SDF continues counterterrorism sweeps and trains female special operations units for raids and urban warfare. Diluting or dismantling those units to meet Damascus’s enlistment model could create gaps jihadists exploit. Conversely, allowing a parallel army to persist risks perpetual fragmentation of Syrian sovereignty.

Then there’s legitimacy. In the northeast, gender parity, communal councils, and co-leadership have become a social contract with real buy-in. Rolling back women’s roles would not only alienate a battle-hardened constituency; it would likely detonate local governance that functions precisely because women are embedded within it.

A narrow path forward

Sharaa says he’ll respect minorities and women. The SDF says it will not yield on women’s command and structural autonomy. Turkey threatens intervention; the U.S. urges a deal. Between those poles lies a narrow track: a phased, verifiable integration that preserves unit cohesion (including women commanders), binds both sides into joint counter-ISIS missions, and anchors rights protections in law with outside monitoring.

On a dusty range near Hasakah, a young trainee hefted a machine gun, wavered, dropped it, then reset her stance. The third time, she steadied and fired in short, controlled bursts as her unit cheered. “Women, Life, Freedom!” she shouted.

The question now is whether a new Syria can make space for the women who bled to build it — or whether the bargain to end one war will sow the seeds of the next.