Coming to TV: ‘Daughters of Kobani’ & the all-female militia that took on ISIS and won January 28 A member of the all-women Kurdish militia that battled ISIS graces the cover of Gayle Lemmon s newest book. (Penguin Random House) Fierce combat waged against ISIS fighters hellbent on savage dominion was ravaging Syria in 2014 when a revolution unlike any other and one unknown to much of the world began turning the tide of the conflict. In the small, northern town of Kobani, just south of the Turkish border, an all-female militia of Kurdish fighters was rallying against the Islamic State, going house to house and eliminating terrorists who were subjecting women just like them to merciless barbarity.
‘Ashley’s War’ and the story of the women of special operations is coming to the big screen January 11 Lt. Ashley White Stumpf, a member of the specialized CST-2, was killed in Afghanistan in October 2011. (ashleywhitestumpf.com) In August 2011, Lt. Ashley White Stumpf joined an entirely female Army cultural support team, or CST, that would soon deploy to Afghanistan into combat alongside various elite elements of the military’s special operations community. As a member of the specialized CST-2, White’s job, highly confidential and done during an era when women were barred from combat arms professions, was to build and improve relationships with Afghan civilians, an especially pertinent role due to cultural limitations placed on Afghan women that prevented them from speaking with men who were not family members.