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Members of the Women’s Protection Forces move along the mountain slopes in camouflage uniforms (Image: Valentina Sinis)
Deep within the fractured rock of Kurdistan’s Qandil Mountains, where the air is thin and the silence is heavy with the threat of attacks by Iranian missile or Turkish drones, a revolution is being hummed in the dark. It is the sound of bread being kneaded, and Kalashnikovs being cleaned. It is the sound of the Women’s Protection Forces (HPJ), an all-female militia who took up arms against ISIS, and are now fighting for democratisation in Iran.
Their defiant fight has been captured in a set of startling images by photographer Valentina Sinis, published here for the first time. They reveal the labyrinth of damp tunnels within caves where dozens of members live, study and fight together. And they show the sisterhood and strength of women who have left their families – even their wealth, education and careers – for this dangerous, unconventional life.
The "Havals" or “comrades” as they are known, include Haval Silav, in her mid-20s, who was born into a patriotic Kurdish family, but grew up in Italy. She had a university education, a future in Europe and the safety of the West, yet she still felt hollow. "I was unfulfilled," she explains. "I was driven by the freedom of the Kurdish nation.
The Kurds and their existential survival are key to understanding these women’s chosen way of life. They are one of the world’s largest diasporas, with an estimated 30 to 45 million people living in mountainous regions across Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. While some Kurds seek a unified homeland, others want greater security and recognised self-autonomy.
The HPJ are a division of the PJAK (The Kurdistan Free Life Party), an armed Kurdish military group that wants to overthrow the Islamic regime of Iran and seek autonomy for its people. Founded in 2004 as an offshoot of the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party) which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for decades, it has been designated a terrorist organisation by Iran, Turkey and the US.
Havals bake bread and cook meals inside small underground bases as part of daily life (Image: Valentina Sinis)
This cave serves as the HPJ’s main hospital and has a dentist and X‑ray room (Image: Valentina Sinis)
But the women living in the caves do not see themselves as insurgents threatening national sovereignty, rather the only ones standing between their people and total erasure.
And the emotional cost of their decision is staggering. When a woman joins the HPJ, she often becomes a ghost to her family to protect them from state retribution. It is a one-way door.
With the Middle East crisis intensifying each day, it is not a world for the faint-hearted. Yet, there is little sign of regret here. Because the havals have another fight to bear – their brave resistance against the subjugation of women.
Haval Cekzin, 26, from Rojava in northeastern Syria, understands this all too well. The only daughter of a wealthy, patriotic family, in 2016 aged 16 she witnessed the devastating attack on Deir ez-Zor, the city where ISIS made its last stand. She left her photography studies to join the resistance aged 17 having been deeply affected by the violence she witnessed.
Haval Biseng, whose inherited name is a tribute to a fallen comrade, also symbolises a life that began only after she left her family behind in Iran. Biseng, who is in her early 20s, grew up in the village of Urmia, in Rojhilat (Iranian Kurdistan). Her family was relatively open-minded, but the world around her was a suffocating "feudal" reality where girls were bartered and silenced. "Other families criticised my parents for giving me freedom," she recalls. "But my father told me the party was the only place a woman could truly be herself."
The turning point for many havals was the Jin, Jiyan, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom) uprising in 2022. The street protests, attended by thousands of women in Iran, were sparked by the brutal death in custody of a young Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini who was detained for wearing her hijab too loosely.
Right: Haval Cekzin, from Rojava, was born into a wealthy, patriotic family; with Haval Nuziyan, left (Image: Valentina Sinis)
The havals practise a philosophy called jineology, defined as the “science of women”, which argues that society can never be free until women are the vanguard of leadership. And within the caves they have established a routine that help them to face the challenges they must meet. The day starts before dawn with physical training. Then they rotate the necessary duties: baking bread in small, makeshift ovens that are vented to hide smoke from thermal cameras; studying the writings of Öcalan, the founder of Jineology, or preparing weapons and mending boots.
The physical environment is governed by tactical silence. The smell is a constant mix of damp earth, diesel from small, portable generators, and the yeasty scent of baking bread. The sky dictates life – the low, persistent hum of Turkish or Iranian drones overhead governs when a fighter can step into the light.
The "main hospital" cave is a marvel of guerrilla engineering. Carved deep enough to withstand conventional artillery, it is fully equipped with X-ray rooms, a dental clinic, and surgery areas. Here, the distinction between "soldier" and "civilian" disappears. The organisation is strictly communal. There are no "commanders" in the Western sense and decisions are thrashed out in long, often heated assemblies.
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Today, Biseng wears the kezî – the traditional Kurdish braid, as a badge of honour. It is a physical link between the urban protests in Tehran and the armed resistance in the caves. "Many women have no choice," she says. "They are trapped between domestic violence and social control. For us, the revolution is the only protection."
Havals walk inside one of the caves (Image: Valentina Sinis)
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