Fighters of the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) held a military parade in Hasaka, northern Syria on Wednesday to celebrate the end of the so-called caliphate of the Islamic State (ISIS). 

The YPJ “is one of the main players who had an effective role in the defeat of Daesh, because it established the unity of women in frontlines,” read a statement from the force’s general command on the occasion. 

Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, Assyrians, Circassians, Chechens, and Armenians fought in the YPJ’s ranks. “This partnership turned into an inspiration for all the women in the world” and they were joined by “hundreds of women from around the globe,” the statement added. 

The YPJ captured the world’s attention as women who shook off traditional constraints and picked up weapons to fight ISIS jihadists. Many were inspired to fight in revenge for atrocities committed by the militants against the Yezidi minority in Shingal. 

Three thousand YPJ fighters were injured in the war against ISIS and 752 were killed, the general command revealed. 

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella force of armed groups of northern Syria, including the YPJ, announced the territorial defeat of ISIS in a ceremony on Saturday after weeks of fighting in the militants’ last holdout of Baghouz. 

The YPJ pledged to make the “liberation” of Afrin their next goal. The Turkish army and its allied Syrian militias seized control of the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in the northwestern corner of Syria last year. 

Photos: Delil Souleiman/AFP