Special to WorldTribune.com

A Yazidi folk singer has formed an all-female fighting unit which aims to take revenge on Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) terrorists who executed, raped and drove thousands of Yazidis from their homes.

The “Sun Girls” battalion was formed by 30-year-old Yazidi singer Xate Shingali, who was given permission by Kurdish President Masoud Barzani to form the unit.

Since forming the “Sun Girls” on July 2, the battalion has recruited 123 female fighters between the ages of 17 (the minimum required age) and 30.

One recruit, Jane Fares, 17, escaped from Sinjar mountain with her brother and sister when ISIL blitzed the area.

“My father was so happy when I had told him I had joined this union,” Fares said. “All families accept us to join this union… We are happy to fight along side the Peshmerga.”

“Sun Girls” recruit Hadia Hassan is seeking to avenge her father’s cousins who are still trapped in ISIL-controlled territory and a female cousin who escaped from the group’s adopted Syrian capital of Raqqa, where the jihadists are said to hold “sex slave auctions.”

“They kill, but why do that to women, why take mothers from their children?” Hassan asked. “They don’t have any humanity.”

While ISIL keeps men and women fighters separated, Kurdish fighters are allowed to mix with the opposite gender on the battlefield.

“My sister is also a Peshmerga … [and] we can fight like men,” said one of the “Sun Girls” deputies, 24-year-old Adiba Sido.

Xate said the group chose “Sun Girls” because the Yazidis believe the sun protects them. “The sun is something holy,” she said.

A rumor in the Yazidi community holds that ISIL fighters are terrified of being killed by a woman on the battlefield because they worry they will not be rewarded with “72 virgins in heaven.”

“ISIL will never go to heaven,” Xate said when asked about the rumor. “We will kill them.”

  IS, ISIL, ISIS, peshmerga, Sun Girls, WorldTribune.com, Xate Shingali, Yazidi, Yazidi singer forms ‘Sun Girls’ battalion to fight ISIL: ‘They have no humanity’