Canadian woman returns from fighting ISIL
Ex-model joins Kurds in battle
MONTREAL — As news reports of Western youths joining ISIL dominated the headlines last spring, Hanna Bohman — once a fashion model, then a salesperson — ran the other way: away from her cushy life in Vancouver and toward the front lines in the war against ISIL.
In March, she boarded a plane to Iraq, and spent 10 days trying to get across the border into Syria to join the Kurdish women’s defence forces known as the YPJ. She had found her calling. Now back in Vancouver after four months of moving from abandoned houses to deserted schools, she describes what drove her to the front and the unglamorous, but rewarding life, she lived in Northern Syria — the area the Kurds call Rojava — and how she longs to go back.
“There was no one event that motivated me,” said Bohman. “Seeing evil beyond evil, the video of the Canadian guy (John Maguire) joining ISIL, the fact that governments weren’t doing anything about it. And then I learned about what the Kurds were doing, and I flew to Iraq.”
At first, Bohman, softspoken, but seemingly unshakable, was taken to a safe house, then to a camp in the mountains.
“It was really tranquil and beautiful and it reminded me of the Okanagan. There were little caves and little huts, hidden in the trees in the hills. I could spend a lot of time there.”
But soon, Bohman and about 10 other Westerners were smuggled across the river in the night in a rubber dinghy to a dispatch area for basic training.
After only a few hours of training, learning primarily how to take weapons apart and put them together again, she was off to the front, “which was a lot more fun.”
Bohman is one of several Canadians, though perhaps the only woman, drawn to the fight against ISIL, despite the obvious dangers. Officially, the Canadian government does not condone people going to fight with the Kurds and suggests they join the army instead. But none of them have encountered any difficulties returning home.
Dillon Hillier, a native of Perth, Ont., and a corporal with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry for five years, was driven to join the fight against ISIL by the lone-wolf attacks in Ottawa and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu last October. He fought with the Kurdish army known as the Peshmerga, and returned home in February. Brandon Glossop, a B.C. native with that same Canadian regiment, returned to Canada in May, but is now doing his own fundraising to return to the front.
Meanwhile, a Quebecer who goes by the name Wali, and who was until recently a sniper with the Canadian Forces, is now in Northern Syria with the international brigades of Rojava, or YPG — the men’s brigades.
Bohman, known by her Kurdish nom de guerre, Hevi Piling, has been featured in numerous selfies and videos online over the last few months, sporting a Canadian flag sewn onto her camouflage jacket.
“I had considered joining the Canadian Army, but what I was looking for was exactly what I was doing in Rojava. I didn’t want to sit around for years in Edmonton or Ottawa.”
After a first month in a defensive position, essentially on the lookout for suicide trucks, Bohman joined a mobile unit at the front. Her first night, sharing a bedroom with five other women, she woke to the sound of a firefight outside. But the other women did not stir, and the guard on duty did not rouse them.
“About an hour later, there was all kinds of cheering — it was impressive. The next day, I found out the village we were in was in shooting distance of snipers, only 500 metres from the enemy.”
Often, the Kurdish forces would co-ordinate with the coalition led by the U.S. fighting ISIL, moving in after an air strike to clear the area of any remaining fighters.
“The air strikes would hit their position, and then we’d run in and capture or kill the Daesh (ISIL fighters). Most of the time, they would run away.”
Bohman can’t really explain why none of this fazed her. She had heard about people, even those with months of military and psychological training, who freaked out once in combat. But not her.
“ISIL fighters would sneak up and we could hear them, but not see them. They had night vision (goggles), but we didn’t. They could be just across the street. But it didn’t bother me. I thought about why it didn’t bother me, and that’s just how I am.”
She describes seeing a man shot twice in the leg — a survivable injury, usually, but not in Rojava, where there is no medevac to get you out, and a young boy no older than 14, fighting for ISIL with his father, hit by an air strike and succumbing to a head injury.
“The air strikes are really the terrifying thing,” Bohman said. “I’ve seen what it does to bodies. Getting killed in an air strike wouldn’t be so bad. But being caught in a collapsed building or buried alive, crushed or suffocated ...”
She says what she remembers most, however, is the Kurds and their incredible generosity and kindness.
“Canadians have a reputation for being friendly, but I don’t think they are. They’re just polite. But the Kurds are so unbelievably friendly and nice and egalitarian.”