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Her smile launched thousands of retweets, and inspired many news articles. People say she’s killed 100 Islamic State fighters. ISIS supporters have declared her dead on two separate occasions.
They call her Rehana, but that’s likely not her name. She’s been dubbed the Angel of Kobane.
How her legend was created :
It’s late August 2014 and Swedish journalist Carl Drott is in Kobane. He watches a ceremony marking the creation of a new home unit of Kurdish fighters. They will serve inside Kobane to keep order and support the army and local police.
Among the new soldiers is a young woman. She tells Drott her father was killed by Islamic State. She left law school to come fight. He takes a picture of her surrounded other fighters, some female.
The woman catches someone else’s attention, too. Their camera focuses on her and she smiles and holds up her left hand to make a V-for-victory sign. Her right hand rests on the barrel of her gun. Behind her are members of the unit, all men. She is the only one wearing full fatigues.
The next day, August 23 2014 , the photo is published by Bijikurdistan, a blog that supports the Kurds in Kobane, according to the BBC. For a while the photo “seems to have gone largely unnoticed,” the BBC writes.
The photo of the smiling woman with the machine gun appears in a tweet from the Slemani Times, an English news site covering the “Kurdistan Region, Iraq, and the Middle East.
Female #YPG fighter stands "ready to defend #Kobane from #ISIS with her life but international help is needed asap."
Rumors Of Beheading Spread
Just over a week later, people on Twitter begin claiming ISIS has beheaded a woman. ISIS supporters share a photo of an ISIS fighter holding up a female head. Soon the photo of the smiling woman begins appearing in tweets next to the Photoshopped beheading. “The association had been made,” reports the BBC.
In early October Indian journalist/activist Pawan Durani finds the photo of the smiling woman and is enchanted. He doesn’t know about the death reports, such as they are. He likes tweeting pictures of the Kurdish Women fighting ISIS. Here is is this woman, so brave and beautiful. Durani wants to share her story, and he wants everyone else to, too. He sends a tweet that identifies her as Rehana and includes a fantastic claim of her fighting prowess:
A couple of weeks later, the photo of the smiling ISIS fighter and the decapitated female head reappears on Twitter. ISIS supporters are saying they got her. They killed the Angel of Kobane. This is the second time they have tried to kill her on social media. ISIS wants to pierce her myth the way she pierced theirs with the claim of her 100 kills. The articles roll in. Is Rehana dead?Rehana has killed more than a hundred #ISIS terrorists in #Kobane . RT and make her famous for her bravery
“Rehana is very much alive. ISIS supporters just trying to lift morale," Durani says. “Tigress is hunting for more. Let ISIS produce even a single picture of Rehana. Propaganda and falsehood runs in their blood. Rehana keeps hunting them.”
There are no new pictures of her.
Original Source Debunks The Myth
Drott, the journalist who met her that August day, reads the reports of her 100 kills, and of her supposed death. He knows Rehana is an uncommon name for a Kurdish woman.
"Rehana" has probably neither been beheaded nor single-handedly killed 100 IS fighters #Kobani #Kobane
Drott writes a Facebook post to reel in the legend, and to say the truth is enough.
“She volunteered to defend Kobani against the Islamic State and risk her life,” Drott writes. “It’s an affront to her that some people think that’s not enough, but that more fantastic details have to be invented, and it also devalues the very many completely true and even more fantastic stories coming out of Kobani. Unfortunately, there’s not an iconic picture for every fantastic story, and vice versa.”
But she still remains a symbol :
I don't know if Rehana is alive or dead, But for me she is a symbol of resistance against Islamic State. Bless her
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