'Poster girl' Masih Hidup!

Kurdish journalist denies 'poster girl' fighter has been beheaded
9:31am October 29, 2014

A Kurdish journalist has denied ISIL claims that the so-called 'poster girl' freedom fighter Rehana has been killed in Syria.

The fighter known only by her first name became an overnight icon of the ongoing battle for the town of Kobane after a photo of her flashing the peace sign was published online on October 13, The Mirror reports.

She has allegedly killed more than 100 terrorists.

Yesterday ISIL claimed that they had beheaded Rehana and released a photo showing a smiling fighter holding a woman's severed head.

However, Kurdish journalist Pawan Durani said the terrorists' claims were false.

"Rehana is very much alive. ISIS supporters just trying to lift morale. Tigress is hunting for more," he wrote.

"Let ISIS produce even a single picture of Rehana. Propaganda and falsehood runs in their blood. Rehana keeps hunting them.".

Female Kurdish fighters of the Yekineyen Parastina Jin (YPJ), or Women Protection Units are involved in the struggle for the town of Kobane on the Syrian-Turkish border.

Kobane has become a crucial battleground in the war against ISIL, representing the gateway to northern Syria and the Turkish border.

This unique force of women are reportedly highly trained, committed and fearless, in a fight that represents the survival of an entire people.

They believe that in their fight there is no difference between a man and a woman, but are aware they fight an enemy that routinely rapes the women it captures before butchering them or selling them into slavery.

Rehana, purportedly a member of the YPJ, has become a symbol of a Kurdish militia movement that includes many women, with some estimating that one in three people engaging in the armed defence of Kobane are female.

More than 800 people have been killed in ground fighting for Kobane since Islamic State group militants attacked the Syrian Kurdish enclave on September 16.

The jihadists have lost 481 dead, while 313 Kurds have been killed fighting to defend the area, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The figures do not include ISIL losses to US-led air strikes, which the Pentagon has said run to "several hundred."

Civilians accounted for 21 of the dead. The jihadist assault prompted nearly all of the enclave's population to flee, with some 200,000 refugees streaming over the border into neighbouring Turkey.

Kurdish fighters have kept up a dogged resistance inside the border town, buoyed by coalition air support and US arms drops.

Earlier this month it was reported that a female Kurdish fighter had carried out a suicide bomb attack against ISIL forces in her defence of Kobane, killing several jihadists who had surrounded the town.

ISIL forces are believed to be just one kilometre from the town.

Source: The Mirror