Download or read book THE DAUGHTERS OF KOBANI written by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon and published by Swift Press. This book was released on 2021-05-13 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The extraordinary story of the women who took on the Islamic State and won In 2014, northeastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolution centered on women's rights. But that year, an all-female militia faced off against ISIS in a little town few had ever heard of: Kobani. By then, the Islamic State had swept across vast swathes of the country, taking town after town and spreading terror as the civil war burned all around it. From that unlikely showdown in Kobani emerged a fighting force that would wage war against ISIS across northern Syria alongside the United States. In the process, these women would spread their own political vision, determined to make women's equality a reality by fighting - house by house, street by street, city by city - the men who bought and sold women. Based on years of on-the-ground reporting, The Daughters of Kobani is the unforgettable story of the women of the Kurdish militia that improbably became part of the world's best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria. Drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews, bestselling author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon introduces us to the women fighting on the front lines, determined to not only extinguish the terror of ISIS but also prove that women could lead in war and must enjoy equal rights come the peace. Rigorously reported and powerfully told, The Daughters of Kobani shines a light on a group of women intent on not only defeating the Islamic State on the battlefield but also changing women's lives in their corner of the Middle East and beyond.

Download or read book Kobani written by Fx Holden and published by . This book was released on 2020-12-09 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "If you've never read Holden, be prepared to strap in and hold on for the ride of your life..." Readers' Favorite While Superpowers dueled in the skies above, she fought to keep her mother and sister alive ... KOBANI is an 'action-packed thrill ride', exploring what impact new military technologies will have on the men and women who serve. From the author of the Future War series, best-selling winner of Readers' Favorite 2020 Political Thriller of the year, and a Publishers' Weekly Star. Backed by Russian air power, Syria has begun an operation to push Turkish troops out of Northern Syria. Despite US efforts not to get dragged into the conflict, the US 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines 'Lava Dogs', find their hilltop combat outpost encircled and their Kurdish allies under siege. Further west, a Syrian armored advance across the border into Turkey pivots, threatening US troops at the Turkish and NATO air base of Incirlik. But will Syria be satisfied with reclaiming its northern border region, or is the operation just the first move in a bolder plan to regain lost territories? INSIDE KOBANI, Kurdish Women's Protection Unit sniper, Daryan Al-Kobani, is fighting for her people, her city and her mother and sister, hunting a Russian sniper who shoots to grievously wound his victims, not to kill. AT COMBAT OUTPOST MEYER on the top of Mishte-nur Hill, Lava Dog Gunner James Jensen is field testing the latest in autonomous ground weapons systems, the Legged Squad Support System 'Hunter'. And finding the weapons system's AI has more than a few potentially lethal bugs. AT INCIRLIK AIR BASE, laser air defense Tactical Control Assistant, Sergeant Alessa Barruzzi, struggles to keep her battery operational against an enemy who attacks with both cyber, electronic and unconventional weapons. COALITION ALLIES, pilots Karen 'Bunny' O'Hare and 'Meany' Papastopolous, find themselves fighting for survival in the air over Turkey when Russia decides to unleash its newest stealth fighter on the battlefield, the Su-57 'Felon', and change the rules of engagement. AND IN ISTANBUL, cyber-warfare analysts Shimi Kahane of Israel's Unit 8200, and Carl Williams, of the US NSA, put together the pieces of an intelligence puzzle codenamed 'Operation Butterfly' that could signal Russia is planning the biggest test of US strategic resolve since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Download or read book Ashley s War written by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-04-21 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of the New York Times bestseller The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, comes the story of a unique team of women who answered the call to get as close to the fight as the Army had ever allowed women to be, including one beloved soldier who was killed serving her country’s cause In 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, a secret pilot program to insert women alongside Special Operations soldiers battling in Afghanistan. The Army reasoned that women could play a unique role on Special Ops teams: accompanying their male colleagues on raids and, while those soldiers were searching for insurgents, questioning the mothers, sisters, daughters and wives living at the compound. Their presence had a calming effect on enemy households, but more importantly, the CSTs were able to search adult women for weapons and gather crucial intelligence. They could build relationships—woman to woman—in ways that male soldiers in an Islamic country never could. In Ashley's War, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses on-the-ground reporting and a finely tuned understanding of the complexities of war to tell the story of CST-2, a unit of women hand-picked from the Army to serve in this highly specialized and challenging role. The pioneers of CST-2 proved for the first time, at least to some grizzled Special Operations soldiers, that women might be physically and mentally tough enough to become one of them. The price of this professional acceptance came in personal loss and social isolation: the only people who really understand the women of CST-2 are each other. At the center of this story is a friendship cemented by "Glee," video games, and the shared perils and seductive powers of up-close combat. At the heart of the team is the tale of a beloved and effective soldier, Ashley White. Much as she did in her bestselling The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, Lemmon transports readers to a world they previously had no idea existed: a community of women called to fulfill the military's mission to "win hearts and minds" and bound together by danger, valor, and determination. Ashley's War is a gripping combat narrative and a moving story of friendship—a book that will change the way readers think about war and the meaning of service.

Download or read book Long Shot written by Azad Cudi and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2019-02-12 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Kurdish journalist who volunteered as a sniper in the fight against ISIS reveals his story in a “gripping memoir . . . elegantly told” (Publishers Weekly). In 2002, at age nineteen, Azad was conscripted into Iran’s army and forced to fight his own people. Refusing to go to war against his fellow Kurds, he deserted and smuggled himself to the United Kingdom, where he was granted asylum, became a citizen, and learned English. But in 2014, having returned to the Middle East as a social worker in the wake of the Syrian civil war, Azad found he would have to pick up a weapon once again. After twenty-one days of intensive training as a sniper, Azad became one of seventeen volunteer marksmen deployed by the Kurdish army when ISIS besieged the city of Kobani in Rojava, the newly autonomous region of the Kurds. Here, he tells the inside story of the Kurdish forces’ bloody street battles against the Islamic State. Vastly outnumbered, the Kurds would have to kill the jihadis one by one, and Azad takes us on a harrowing journey to reveal the sniper unit’s essential role in ISIS’s eventual defeat. Weaving the brutal events of war with personal and political reflection, he meditates on the incalculable price of victory—the permanent effects of war on the body and mind; the devastating death of six of his closest comrades; the loss of hundreds of volunteers in battle. But as Azad explains, these sacrifices saved not only a city but a people and their land. “A propulsive memoir that captures the grim reality of small-scale conflict and reveals the fragmented politics of the Middle East today” (Kirkus Reviews), Long Shot tells how, against all odds, a few thousand men and women achieved the impossible and kept their dream of freedom alive.

Download or read book The Dressmaker of Khair Khana written by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller, written by a former reporter for ABC News, that People magazine called “a transporting, enlightening book” tells the story of a fearless young entrepreneur who brought hope to the lives of dozens of women in war-torn Afghanistan Former ABC journalist Gayle Tzemach Lemmon tells the riveting true story of Kamila Sidiqi and other women of Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban’s fearful rise to power. In what Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, calls “one of the most inspiring books I have ever read,” Lemmon recounts with novelistic vividness the true story of a fearless young woman who not only reinvented herself as an entrepreneur to save her family but, in the face of ferocious opposition, brought hope to the lives of dozens of women in war-torn Kabul.

Download or read book The Daughters of Kobani written by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The extraordinary story of the women who took on the Islamic State and won “The Daughters of Kobani is an unforgettable and nearly mythic tale of women's power and courage. The young women profiled in this book fought a fearsome war against brutal men in impossible circumstances—and proved in the process what girls and women can accomplish when given the chance to lead. Brilliantly researched and respectfully reported, this book is a lesson in heroism, sacrifice, and the real meaning of sisterhood. I am so grateful that this story has been told.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, Love “Absolutely fascinating and brilliantly written, The Daughters of Kobani is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand both the nobility and the brutality of war. This is one of the most compelling stories in modern warfare.” —Admiral William H. McRaven, author of Make Your Bed In 2014, northeastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolution centered on women's rights. But that year, an all-female militia faced off against ISIS in a little town few had ever heard of: Kobani. By then, the Islamic State had swept across vast swaths of the country, taking town after town and spreading terror as the civil war burned all around it. From that unlikely showdown in Kobani emerged a fighting force that would wage war against ISIS across northern Syria alongside the United States. In the process, these women would spread their own political vision, determined to make women's equality a reality by fighting—house by house, street by street, city by city—the men who bought and sold women. Based on years of on-the-ground reporting, The Daughters of Kobani is the unforgettable story of the women of the Kurdish militia that improbably became part of the world's best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria. Drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews, bestselling author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon introduces us to the women fighting on the front lines, determined to not only extinguish the terror of ISIS but also prove that women could lead in war and must enjoy equal rights come the peace. In helping to cement the territorial defeat of ISIS, whose savagery toward women astounded the world, these women played a central role in neutralizing the threat the group posed worldwide. In the process they earned the respect—and significant military support—of U.S. Special Operations Forces. Rigorously reported and powerfully told, The Daughters of Kobani shines a light on a group of women intent on not only defeating the Islamic State on the battlefield but also changing women's lives in their corner of the Middle East and beyond.

Download or read book Summary of Gayle Tzemach Lemmon s The Daughters of Kobani written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-07-21T22:59:00Z with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Azeema was a sniper, and her life and the lives of her teammates hinged on her ability to bide her time and know just the right moment to shoot. She was under siege in Kobani, a Kurdish town near the Syrian-Turkish border. #2 The Kurds are a large ethnic minority in Syria, and they have been seeking their own land since the Treaty of Sèvres promised them a state in 1920, but Turkey's first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, rejected the treaty. #3 The 2004 Kurdish uprising in Syria was a result of the Iraqi Kurdistan region gaining more rights as a result of the U. S. ousting of Saddam Hussein. It demonstrated the will of young Syrian Kurds to defy their elders and go out into the streets, despite the dangers and risk of jail. #4 The Kurdish people in Syria were able to build up a political opposition group, the Democratic Union Party, and recruit members. They were still illegal in Syria, but they worked in secret to spread their ideas and gather followers.

Download or read book Freedom Fighter written by Joanna Palani and published by Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2019-01-03 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gripping story of one woman's war against ISIS on the frontlines of Syria. Joanna Palani made headlines across the world when her role fighting ISIS in the Syrian conflict was revealed. She is one of a handful of western women who joined the international recruits to the Kurdish forces in the region and this is the first time her extraordinary story has been told. Inspired by the Arab Spring, Joanna left behind her student life in Copenhagen and travelled to the Middle East in order to join the YPJ - the all-female brigade of the Kurdish militia in Syria. After undergoing considerable military training, including as a saboteur and sniper, Joanna served as a YPJ fighter over several years and took part in the brutal siege of Kobani. Despite her heroism, she was taken in to custody on her return to Denmark for breaking laws designed to stop its citizens from joining ISIS, making her the first person to be jailed for joining the international coalition. In this raw and unflinching memoir, Joanna not only provides an eye-witness account of this devastating war but also reveals the personal cost of the battles she has fought on and off the frontlines.

Download or read book The Siege of Kobani written by Matthew Priester and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-16 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Summer of 2014 the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, commonly known to the Western world as ISIS, dominated world news headlines. This fanatical group of hardened fighters had arisen, seemingly out of nowhere and swept through much of Eastern Syria and Western Iraq in a lightening advance. From the suburbs of Baghdad to the outskirts of Aleppo, this brutal terror syndicate had founded a proto-state, a so-called Caliphate that showed no signs of halting its expansion. In attempting to cleanse their northern border with Turkey, the terror group took a detour to wipe out a Kurdish militia known as the YPG or People's Protection Units in the city of Kobani. Though the small town of 50,000 may have promised an easy victory, it became a rock upon which the Caliphate broke itself on. From September of 2014 to January of 2015, approximately 2,000 Kurdish YPG militia and their Free Syrian Army allies fought off an Islamic State force several times their size. The city would see house to house fighting for almost four months. Daily shelling, suicide truck-bombs and over 700 coalition airstrikes would turn the town into a moonscape of twisted steel and concrete blocks, earning it a moniker, "the Kurdish Stalingrad." Despite their inferior numbers and lack of supplies, the defenders would emerge victorious. The breaking of the siege brought international attention, air support and material aid to the Kurdish forces and their allies, drastically altering the outcome of the war. Using open-source material, 'The Siege of Kobani' tells the story of this short but pivotal chapter in the Syrian Civil War.

Download or read book The Kobane Generation written by Mari Toivanen and published by Helsinki University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A small Kurdish city located in northern Syria, Kobane, became symbolically significant when ISIS laid siege to the city between September 2014 and January 2015. This pivotal moment in the fight against ISIS threw the international spotlight on the Kurds. The Kobane Generation analyses how Kurdish diaspora communities mobilised in France after the breakout of the Syrian civil war and political unrest in Turkey and Iraq in the 2010s. Tens of thousands of people, mostly but not exclusively diaspora Kurds, demonstrated in major European capitals, expressed their solidarity with Kobane, and engaged in transnational political activism towards Kurdistan. In this book, Mari Toivanen discusses a series of critical events that led to different forms of transnational participation towards Kurdistan. The focus of this book is particularly on how diaspora mobilisations became visible among the second generation, the descendants of Kurdish migrants. The book addresses important questions, such as why second-generation members felt the need to mobilise and what kind of transnational participation this led to. How did the transnational participation and political activism of the second generation differ from that of their parents, and is such activism simply diasporic or also related to more global changes in political activism? The Kobane Generation offers important insights on the generational dynamics of political mobilisations and their significance to understanding diaspora contributions. More broadly, it sheds light on second-generation political activism beyond the diaspora context, analysing it in relation to global transformations in political subjectivities.

Download or read book Defeating the Islamic State Group written by Associated Press and published by AP Editions. This book was released on 2015-03-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 2014, Islamic State group fighters captured about 300 Kurdish villages near Kobani, Syria, and then thrust into the town itself, occupying almost half of it and sending tens of thousands of refugees fleeing into Turkey. Unsure if Kobani would hold, U.S. officials including Secretary of State John Kerry spent weeks saying the town wasn't a U.S. priority. But, a small makeshift coalition of Kurdish Peshmerga forces from Iraq, Kobani Kurds (including Kurdish women fighters) and combatants from the Free Syrian Army refused to give in to the Islamic State militants. Under a steady pounding from U.S. - led air power and the tenacity of the Kobani defenders, IS was forced to retreat in January 2015, leaving over 1,000 of its best fighters dead. Follow the weeks of fighting through the photos and stories of Associated Press journalists, as Kobani became proof that the Islamic State group can be defeated.

Download or read book Daughters of Smoke and Fire written by Ava Homa and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2020-05-12 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unforgettable, haunting story of a young woman’s perilous fight for freedom and justice for her brother, the first novel published in English by a female Kurdish writer Set primarily in Iran, this extraordinary debut novel weaves 50 years of modern Kurdish history through a story of a family facing oppression and injustices all too familiar to the Kurds. Leila dreams of making films to bring the suppressed stories of her people onto the global stage, but obstacles keep piling up. Her younger brother, Chia, influenced by their father’s past torture, imprisonment, and his deep-seated desire for justice, begins to engage with social and political affairs. But his activism grows increasingly risky and one day he disappears in Tehran. Seeking answers about her brother’s whereabouts, Leila fears the worst and begins a campaign to save him. But when she publishes Chia’s writings online, she finds herself in grave danger as well. Inspired by the life of Kurdish human rights activist Farzad Kamangar and published to coincide with the 10th anniversary of his execution, Daughters of Smoke and Fire is an evocative portrait of the lives and stakes faced by 40 million stateless Kurds. It’s an unflinching but compassionate and powerful story that brilliantly illuminates the meaning of identity and the complex bonds of family. A landmark novel for our troubled world, Daughters of Smoke and Fire is a gripping and important read, perfect for fans of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun.

Download or read book The Kurds of Northern Syria written by Harriet Allsopp and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-08-08 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on unprecedented access to Kurdish-governed areas of Syria, including exclusive interviews with administration officials and civilian surveys, this book sheds light on the socio-political landscape of this minority group and the various political factions vying to speak for them. The first English-language book to capture the momentous transformations that have occurred since 2011, the authors move beyond idealized images of Rojava and the Kurdish PYD (Democratic Union Party) to provide a nuanced assessment of the Kurdish autonomous experience and the prospects for self-rule in Syria. The book draws on unparalleled field research, as well as analysis of the literature on the evolution of Kurdish politics and the Syrian war. You will understand why the PYD-led project in Syria split the Kurdish political movement and how other representative structures amongst Syria's Kurds fared. Emerging clearly are the complex range of views about pre-existing, current and future governance structures.

Download or read book Expect Resistance written by and published by CrimethInc. Collective. This book was released on 2008 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Expect Resistance is not one but three books, each of which may be read as a complete work unto itself. The first book, printed in standard black ink, continues the inquiry into modern life and its discontents begun in Days of War, Nights of Love, Just as that book included improved versions of texts originally published between 1996 and 1999, this book draws on CrimethInc. material from 2000 to 2004, painstakingly refined and augmented with a great deal of new content. The second book, in red ink, is a composite account, related by three narrators, of the adventures and tribulations that inevitably ensue when people pursuing their dreams enter into conflict with the world as it is.

Download or read book Golan written by F. X. Holden and published by . This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Order the paperback of GOLAN throughout June for the discounted cost of printing and postage only! "If you've never read Holden, strap in and hold on for the ride of your life!" Readers' Favorite. GOLAN, This is the Future of War, asks a question few want to consider. What will happen if Iran acquires nuclear weapons in the next ten years? In true Future of War style, GOLAN explores the question through the eyes of front line participants on all sides, in a conflict set ten years into the future. Featuring military tech that is on the drawing boards today and characters you won't easily forget, GOLAN throws the reader straight into the center of a nuclear storm and doesn't ease up. In Buq'ata in the Golan Heights, Amal Azaria, Robotics Engineer with the Israeli Defense Research Directorate has designed an assassination microdrone that memorizes the face of its target, little knowing her drone will be firing the first shot in a new global war. In the air over Turkey, Gunnery Sergeant James Jensen of the 3rd Marines, 1st Battalion 'Lava Dogs' settles in for a short flight to Kuwait and some well earned liberty. Then learns the quadrotor carrying his squad is not headed for Kuwait at all. 150 miles southwest of the Russian Black Sea Fleet Base, Islamic Republic of Iran Captain Hossein Rostami - commander of Iran's newest and most capable guided missile destroyer - watches as a delicate cargo is loaded aboard his ship. At sea. In the dead of night. On Cyprus, court-martialed pilot, Karen 'Bunny' O'Hare, is visited in detention by a project lead from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, who offers to get her out of the jug, and back in a pilot's seat ... with a catch. In Syria, Iranian Quds Force sniper, Abdolrasoul Delavari, takes on a mission to free hostages allegedly being used as 'human shields' by American troops in a UN buffer zone. But freeing them will require the longest shot of his life. Under the waves of the Mediterranean, Captain Binyamin Ben-Zvi brings his nuclear-armed Gal class submarine up to communications depth to report that after a long patrol via the Cape of Good Hope his submarine is in position. But in position for what? In Washington, the newly appointed Director of Cyber Security, Tonya Duprés, connects all the dots that lead to a frightening conclusion. Iran and Syria, backed by Russia, are planning an All Domain Attack - cyber, space, air, land and sea - against Israel. But as a combined Russian-Iranian fleet sails out of the Aegean and into the Mediterranean, and Syrian troops mass on the ceasefire line outside the Golan Heights, can anyone stop it?

Download or read book Direct Action written by David Graeber and published by AK Press. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A radical anthropologist studies the global justice movement.

Download or read book Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique written by Sa'ed Atshan and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-26 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Ramallah to New York, Tel Aviv to Porto Alegre, people around the world celebrate a formidable, transnational Palestinian LGBTQ social movement. Solidarity with Palestinians has become a salient domain of global queer politics. Yet LGBTQ Palestinians, even as they fight patriarchy and imperialism, are themselves subjected to an "empire of critique" from Israeli and Palestinian institutions, Western academics, journalists and filmmakers, and even fellow activists. Such global criticism has limited growth and led to an emphasis within the movement on anti-imperialism over the struggle against homophobia. With this book, Sa'ed Atshan asks how transnational progressive social movements can balance struggles for liberation along more than one axis. He explores critical junctures in the history of Palestinian LGBTQ activism, revealing the queer Palestinian spirit of agency, defiance, and creativity, in the face of daunting pressures and forces working to constrict it. Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique explores the necessity of connecting the struggles for Palestinian freedom with the struggle against homophobia.