almost a month after turkey s invasion of northern syria, there was no letup in the fighting. the kurds were, once more, forced to defend the land they called home. the aftershocks from president trump s decision which allowed turkey to invade continued to reverberate. only an hour s drive from the front lines, in the town of kobani, nishti morad, the schoolteacher, had decided to stay. she wasn t ready to give up the dream of a kurdish homeland, rojaba. i think rojaba is a region for people to live in peace. for all people. it s a self-controlled area for the kurds. we just wanted our rights. nishti was brave. she was also nervous. she constantly checked for news. not easy as cell phone service was largely disrupted. she was trying to news. not easy as it was largely
the isis fighters come in waves. not just one and two they try and infiltrate but 40, 50 fighters will come and try and swarm into the building. reporter: she told me isis was aiming to kill everyone who was fighting here, especially the female fighters. but we were resolute, and we fought back. we defended this place with our lives until the last drop of blood, azima said. we lost many comrades. kobani turned out to be the beginning of a new kind of war for america in the middle east. with the kurds doing the fighting. over the course of five years, the kurds expanded their ranks and partnered with elite american special forces. together they were devastatingly lethal. killing tens of thousands of isis fighters. as centcomm commander, general votel led the military campaign that defeated the caliphate. the syrian kurds were
and no one seemed able to stop them. but that all changed in a little kurdish town called kobani. isis fighters attacked kobani with everything they had. the battles were street to street. but the kurds refused to surrender. this battle of kobani ended up being a massive turning point in the overall campaign. and so from that moment we had a little toehold in syria to begin to fight back against what was the heart of the isis caliphate. reporter: i was with the kurdish fighters in kobani, men and women on the front lines. that s how i first met azima. she was one of the kurdish commanders. and she showed me just how close the enemy was. she s saying when they come,
and i m happy because there s no fighting. we can bring certainly most of our people back home for the first time in many years. reporter: but just days later, a group of militiamen captured a 26-year-old kurdish fighter from kobani. they laughed and jeered at her. how s rojaba, they asked, called her a pig, threatened to slit her throat. are the kurdish people happy now? as president trump says? translator: the kurdish people are not happy. the things that have happened so far are in turkey s interest and against the kurdish people. is there ethnic cleansing now? has it begun? translator: it has started, and it has reached dangerous levels. if it continues, the ethnic cleansing will be complete. we always speak as if it is the fate of the kurdish people to live like this, as if this current war of the turkish army was inevitable.
why do you think the kurds fought so hard against isis? kurds are very stubborn people, and they like their land, their home. so every time, they will fight. reporter: nishti marad wasn t a fighter but a schoolteacher. she came back to her small family farm outside kobani after isis was driven out. what was it like when you came back? when i came, there was many destroyed towns. everything was different. everything was like it was changed. you feel that you have to start from the beginning. and we did that. we started from zero. happy to be home? home sweet home. reporter: the kurds happiness would not last long. they thought they had earned the right to a homeland.