In the barren deserts in north-eastern Syria, a female Kurdish soldier and three of her comrades found themselves wounded, surrounded, and almost out of bullets.

Tasked with holding the line, Mizgin Rojda and her unit stood firm as a dozen Turkish-backed militia fighters ambushed them, shooting wildly.

“We had promised each other that we would fight to the end, no matter what,” the 29-year-old tells The Telegraph. “It was a fierce fight, we were injured, but we didn’t give up. We held out until reinforcements came.”

Mizgin is a senior field commander in Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), an all-female Kurdish brigade that helps lead the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF has been locked in Syria’s 14-year civil war, fighting the Islamic State on one front and Turkish-backed rebel groups known as the Syrian National Army (SNA) on another.

Her war has always been centred in the dusty hillsides close to the Turkish border, where miles of bunker outposts and tunnels stretch across scarred land that sits outside of Damascus’s control.

But when Islamist rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime and seized power in early December, the partially-frozen conflict between the SDF and SNA reignited. Supported by Turkish air power and drones, the predominantly Arab militia groups of the SNA launched a fresh offensive, shattering frontlines quiet since 2019.

The SDF has since agreed to integrate into the new Syrian state, raising hopes that the years of clashes and conflict will come to an end.

‘We are holding our ground’

Mizgin, however, feels her fight against those she calls “the occupiers” is far from over. Despite the demands of Syria’s new rulers in Damascus, she is not yet ready to put down her gun.

“The Turkish state and its proxy factions are attacking us in every way, but we are holding our ground,” says Mizgin, who joined the Women’s Protection Units in 2015 “when the occupiers were plundering and destroying the land I was born in.”