THE DAUGHTERS OF KOBANI

A group portrait of a band of trailblazing female soldiers who helped to take back territory that the Islamic State group had claimed in Syria.

Lemmon, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, follows a group of Kurdish women who made a remarkable decision during the Syrian civil war: They would lead men in battle, creating “an all-female command structure.” They were members of the “plucky ragtag militia” known as the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units, or YPJ, adherents of the Marxist-Leninist–inspired teachings of the imprisoned Turkish Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, who believed that the “Kurds couldn’t be free if women weren’t.” Skepticism of the women’s efforts diminished after the battle of Kobani, when all-female units—toting AK-47s and serving as snipers, battlefield commanders, and more—helped to deal IS its first loss, a turning point in the war. The YPJ later fought at Manbij, Raqqa, and elsewhere, gaining an acceptance by male soldiers that astonished a U.S. Army member: “The men have no issue with them at all. It’s almost bizarre.” Lemmon adroitly sets the women’s battlefield exploits against the backdrop of shifting regional alliances and U.S. policies, evenhandedly showing Barack Obama’s slowness to respond to the IS threat—“In January 2014, Obama characterized ISIS as ‘junior varsity’ ”—as well as the risks of the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of Kobani and stand back when NATO ally Turkey attacked Kurdish-led northern Syria in 2019. The author focuses on the YPJ women in their fighting roles, which makes for a steady pace but at times limited characterizations. As a group, however, these soldiers display a wholly admirable bravery and commitment to women’s equality even when it cost them—as it sometimes did—their lives.

A well-told story of contemporary female warriors and the complex geopolitical realities behind their battles.