Arin Mirkan


Arin Mirkan was a commander in the Women's Protection Units who died fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant during the Siege of Kobanî on October 5, 2014. She fought on Mishtanour Hill with Rojda Felat, who later became the general commander of the YPJ. On the hill, Mirkan killed herself along with numerous ISIL fighters with explosives. The incident was the first known case of a YPJ fighter carrying out a suicide attack.
Arin Mirkan was 20 and a mother of two. Haj Mansour, the Kurdish defence official in Kobane, reported that Kurdish fighters had been forced to withdraw from a strategic hill south of Kobane. Mirkan stayed behind, attacking ISIL militants as they surrounded her. She eventually detonated explosives attached to her body, killing ten enemy fighters.
Twenty-seven ISIL fighters were thought to have died in the day's clashes, but it's unclear how many were the result of Arin's explosives.

Memory

In Kobanî a statue remembering Arin Mirkan was erected. Andrew Webb-Mitchell composed a violin concerto named Arin Mirkan.