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Home / World

Joanna Palani, Islamic State killer: Terrorists are 'easy to kill'

By Debra Killalea
news.com.au·
27 May, 2016 09:52 PM4 mins to read

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Joanna Palani is now back home studying in Copenhagen after fighting alongside Kurdish-led forces in Iraq and Syria. Photo / Facebook

Joanna Palani is now back home studying in Copenhagen after fighting alongside Kurdish-led forces in Iraq and Syria. Photo / Facebook

A young, beautiful and educated woman who dropped out of university so she could fight against Islamic State has revealed how easy it is to kill militants.

Danish woman Joanna Palani has relived her time fighting alongside Kurdish-led forces in Iraq and Syria fighting terrorists and Syrian Government forces last year.

In an interview with Broadly, Palani talks about how she left Denmark in 2014 in a "fight for human rights for all people".

But in a brutally honest interview, the now 23-year-old said killing members of the terror group was not hard, although the better-trained Syrian Government forces were a little more difficult to take down.

"Isis fighters are very easy to kill," she said.

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"Isis fighters are very good at sacrificing their own lives, but Assad's soldiers are very well trained and they are specialist killing machines."

Palani first went to Rojova in Syria where she was fighting alongside the YPG for six months before joining the Peshmerga for the same amount of time.

She is one of a only a few westerners to have returned home from Syria and Iraq to tell their story.

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Born in a refugee camp in Ramadi, Iraq, Palani moved to Copenhagen as a toddler.

She reveals how her passport was confiscated after she returned home while on leave from the Peshmerga forces and the government has refused to renew it, leaving her stranded in Denmark.

But while she misses being there, she admits it wasn't all glory on the frontline.

She said how on her first night a Swedish foreign fighter was shot right in front of her after a sniper had noticed him smoking.

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She detailed how his cigarette remained alight while his blood soaked into her uniform.

And the news of child rape and sex slaves really shocked her.

"Even though I am a fighter it is difficult for me to read about how a 10-year-old girl is going to die because she is bleeding from a rape," she said.

Having since returned home she is now studying but hasn't forgotten her "comrades".

Her Facebook page is filled with posts about the fight for the Kurds as well as revealing how she has an interest in weapons and also keeping fit.

In one cover photo she even had a picture of grenades with the caption, "old school".

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But it is the politics and philosophy student's posts since coming home that reveal how much she misses not only fighting Isis but also friends she made while doing so.

Just days ago the Copenhagen woman posted how she misses Kurdistan.

The YPG are part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), formed in October 2015 and are considered the most effective independent anti-Isis force on the ground in Syria.

The YPG has also driven Islamic State from wide areas of northern Syria over the past year or more, though its advances have recently slowed, AFP reported.

The Isis hunters

Palani is not the only one who has spoken of fighting and killing Isis militants.

Earlier this year footage emerged of an Iraqi war veteran who claimed to have taken down more that 170 Isis fighters.

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Abu Tahseen, who volunteers with Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Units to defend his country against the terror group, revealed his hatred for the terror group is so strong he spends all his time shooting them.

In the propaganda video uploaded on the Iraq Popular Mobilisation Unit's YouTube channel in March, Tahseen is stationed in the Makhoul Mountains in Baiji, northern Iraq.

It is believed Tahseen joined the group in May last year and according to the IPMU "is a sniper veteran of five armed conflicts" including The Yom Kippur War, the Iran-Iraq war, the invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War.

Mystery is snipers

While Taheen and Palani's identities have been revealed mystery still remains over the identity of other Isis hunters.

In February this year, there was growing speculation a ghost sniper was on the loose in Libya after three top Isis commanders were killed.

It also followed the revelation that a British sniper killed an Isis executioner after his target was decapitated by a single bullet from a long-range rifle.

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