Arin Mirkan

Arin Mirkan was a commander in the YPJ who sacrificed herself fighting against ISIS in Kobanî on October 5, 2014. She fought together on Mishtanour Hill with Rojda Felat, who later became the general commander of the YPJ. On the hill, Mirkan broke into an ISIS stronghold and set off a grenade underneath a tank, killing herself along with numerous ISIS fighters. The incident was the first known case of a Kurdish fighter carrying out a suicide attack.

Arin Mirkan – a nom de guerre, her real name was Deilar Genj Khamis – was 20 (or 22 ) 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 ISIS militants as they surrounded her. She eventually detonated explosives attached to her body, killing ten enemy fighters.

Rami Abdurrahman, founder and director of the Syria Observatory for Human Rights, told the Independent newspaper that he “cannot confirm the exact number” of ISIS militants killed by Mirkan's attack, but twenty-seven ISIS fighters were understood to have died in the day's clashes.

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