In the mountains of Northern Iraq lives the twenty first century's answer to the Amazonian warriors, a small band of Kurdish guerrilla fighters called the Peshmerga Force for Women.

They have been fighting to maintain the Kurdish autonomous zone since they recaptured Sulaimaniyah and expelled the Ba'ath party in 1992.

By far the most persecuted of all Saddam Hussein's victims, the Kurds suffered intolerably during his 1988 Anfal campaign which brought genocide through the chemical bombing of Halabja and saw thousands buried alive in desert mass graves.

Although the war-proper ended for them over ten years ago, the scars are still very apparent. Bullet holes riddle many buildings, Saddam's bunkers litter every mountain peak and in the earth are hidden twenty million land mines.

In a deeply Muslim country, the women's fight to prove their equality to men and show their worth as soldiers has been a tough one. As a minority among the some twenty five thousand strong Peshmerga rebels they have earnt respect and built a reputation for bravery and skill in the battlefield.

Since the coalition invasion in March the Kurds are now closer to achieving peace than at any other time in their history and the Peoples Union of Kurdistan, the governmental organisation behind the army, are laying the first building blocks in the arduous task of creating a democracy.

Now that the end of the struggle seems within their reach the women at Farmanday, ten kilometres outside of Sulaimaniyah, provide a military presence and maintain civil peace.

An official women's unit was formed in 1996 after the costly communal fighting with the Kurdish Democratic Party. Many joined the Peshmerga through an inconsolable hate for the regime and a need for revenge after their men folk were lost in Sulaimaniyah's prison camp, tortured and murdered by Saddam Hussein. A funfair is now built on that site and parks cover the mass graves, where I was taken for a picnic on my first night in the city.

One woman I became close to was Shaima Sami. When the Ba'ath party executed her father and brother, her mother joined the Peshmerga, as did her three daughters, including Shaima who was only fourteen. Now twenty one, she guards a roadblock at night while attending school in the day.

Incredibly beautiful and charismatic, she is always running around with her Kalashnikov pretending to shoot Saddam who is hiding in the bushes and singing revolutionary songs at the top of her voice. At night we shared a blanket while I taught her a few words of English under the brightest stars I have ever seen, which stretched right down to the horizon.

Asked whether they will ever return to their civilian lives and the conventional roles of Muslim women, the Peshmergas' answer is a resounding 'no' - they 'love the Kalashnikov and an outdoor life' too much. Even when the cause is gone, they will remain.

Anastasia Taylor-Lind 2003