Meet Joanna Palani, the 23-year-old former college student who fought on the frontlines in Syria and revealed ISIS terrorists are 'very easy to kill'.
Joanna travelled from her home in Copenhagen, Denmark, when she was 22 to Iraq before moving on to Rojova in Syria and joining up with Kurdish forces in an attempt to 'fight for human rights for all people'.
She learned how to shoot a gun when she was just nine years old and quickly began teaching other women how to fight after witnessing first hand the awful horrors of war.
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Now back home after her time fighting, Joanna has revealed the vast differences between ISIS and President Assad's forces.
Speaking in a Vice documentary to freelance journalist Lara Whyte, she said: "ISIS fighters are very easy to kill. ISIS fighters are very good at sacrificing their own lives, but Assad's soldiers are very well-trained and they are specialist killing machines."
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Joanna first fought with the People's Protection Unit but after six months decided to join the Peshmerga for a further six months. In that time, and on her first night on the front line, she witnessed a fellow comrade die next to her as a sniper spotted cigarette smoke coming from where they were posted.
She had to sit and watch the Swedish fighter die next to her as his blood soaked into her uniform.
A role model of sorts for many females in Syria, she began receiving messages from women in captivity, describing how they'd been treated at the hands of ISIS.
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Joanna said: "Even though I am a fighter it is difficult for me to read about how a ten-year-old girl is going to die because she is bleeding from a rape."
Apparently it took Danish police three days to contact her upon her return, informing her that her passport was invalid and if she returned to Iraq or Syria, she'd be locked up for up to six years.
After a year fighting for human rights, and not being allowed to return to the front line, Joanna is now studying politics and philosophy in Copenhagen but feels like she's let down everyone who she has left behind.
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After the horrors she's been through and witnessed, that's no surprise.
Words by George Pavlou
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