YPG / YPJ (People's & Women's Protection Units)
The Kurdish militia core of the SDF — the YPG and its women's units, the YPJ — rooted in the PYD movement family. Türkiye considers them a PKK extension and demands their dissolution; the units reject the equation. Component and historical context.
About this record
Stub — a structured placeholder meeting the public-stub threshold: name, place in the force tree, broad role, and a dated status. A full profile follows source review.
Lineage & institutional history
Key events
The defence of Kobani
ISIS besieges the Kurdish border town of Kobani (Ayn al-Arab); YPG fighters, with US air support and Iraqi Kurdish reinforcement, hold and then break the assault by January 2015 in the caliphate's first major defeat.
Türkiye takes Afrin — Operation Olive Branch
Turkish forces and Turkish-backed Syrian factions take the Kurdish enclave of Afrin from the YPG; a large part of its Kurdish population is displaced, and documented abuses by the factions follow — property seizures and demographic change Kurdish organisations describe as systematic, which Türkiye denies.