An Interview with Murat Karayılan, commander of the People’s Defence Forces (HPG)
About the fight against ISIS in Kurdistan
In this in-depth interview, Murat Karayılan, reflects on the harrowing battle against ISIS in Kurdistan. He recounts how the guerrilla and the YPG saved the population in Şengal and the courageous resistance in Kobanê. Karayılan reveals untold stories of the young men and women who took on ISIS, securing freedom and safety—not only for the region but for the world
When the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS for short, advanced on the Ezidi city of Şengal (Sinjar) in northern Iraq (southern Kurdistan) in August 2014, crimes were committed that seemed almost unimaginable in this form in the 21st century. The cruelty and brutality inflicted on the members of one of the region’s oldest religious communities in the days that followed can hardly be put into words. To this day, the fate of thousands of abducted women and girls remains unknown, and it is believed that not all the mass graves in which the dead were buried have been found.
The anger of people all over the world was mixed with a feeling of deep sadness and powerlessness in the face of the situation. The anger was directed at the heinous perpetrators, of course, but also at those who had left the Ezidi population unprotected, and at those who stood by and watched the crimes instead of intervening, despite claiming to be part of a so-called anti-IS coalition.
But there were also people who turned their anger into action, who did not fall into impotent grief, but wanted to put an end to the suffering and protect the people from further attacks. While all other armed forces and armies in the region, equipped with the latest weapons technology, left the field to IS without a fight, it was true heroes and heroines who stood in the way of this murderous band of jihadists.
They fought to clear an escape corridor in northern Iraq in order to save the Ezidi population from an even greater genocide. A short time later, they confronted ISIS in Kobanê and did not give up in an almost hopeless situation until they inflicted the first defeat on the battlefield on the previously “invincible” ISIS. A few years later, they ended the territorial rule of ISIS in Baghouz in eastern Syria and made not only the region but the whole world safer. Anyone who remembers the many terrible terrorist attacks carried out by ISIS in the middle of Europe should know that we here in Western Europe also owe a great deal to these men and women. Because they have also made our lives safer here.
But who are these young women and men to whom we owe so much? Where did they find the courage to confront IS in this way and at great sacrifice? And how did their fight unfold?
Murat Karayılan answers these questions in an in-depth interview. He tells the story of this heroic resistance as we have never known it before. He shares with us important information from this period that has rarely or never been made public.
Karayılan is a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK for short. And to say it straight away: the PKK has played a prominent role in this fight. The same PKK that saved us from ISIS and possibly saved the lives of tens of thousands of people is still listed and criminalized as a terrorist organization in the EU today. That is a disgrace for Europe.
The original interview was published in early 2022. With some delay, we would now like to make it available in English. This important interview has lost none of its significance and actuality. It is the testimony of a man who was directly involved in the fight against ISIS. And we believe that these statements should be heard in order to better understand one of the most defining periods in the recent history of the Middle East.