quote:
High heels, fatigues and gold rifle-shaped rings -- singer Helly Luv's blend of bang and bling has made her the most popular cheerleader for the Iraqi Kurds' war against jihadists.

She visits peshmerga forces fighting the Islamic State group, which overran a third of Iraq last year, and says she filmed her latest music video in Al-Khazr, not far from the jihadists' lines.

"I want to give something to the peshmerga because I consider myself one of them," the 26-year-old singer told AFP in the Kurdish regional capital Arbil.

"I wore peshmerga clothes in the song to support them."

Her latest music video, for a song titled "Revolution," opens with a peshmerga fighter looking at a picture of himself with a young boy, presumably his son, as shelling and gunfire are heard in the background.

He tucks the photo inside his helmet and goes to fight.

The video then moves to a quiet village where children play and people sit drinking tea, but it soon comes under fire from black-clad militants driving armoured vehicles like those captured from Iraqi security forces, including a tank.

quote:
lyrics such as "We gon' keep on fighting" make clear she means the violence will stop once IS is defeated.

The music video hits on many themes that the peshmerga have sought to emphasise since the anti-IS conflict began last June, showing them as the brave, secular defenders of the innocent threatened by jihadist brutality.

To hammer home the coexistence message, people march in the video carrying banners with peace messages in various languages and an array of religious symbols, including the Jewish star of David and the Buddhist wheel.

I have to say, if I was single, childless, and a little more crazy/principled, I'd probably be there already. The Peshmerga (translation: Those who face death)are sitting in the same foxholes (metaphorically) that we did in Iraq, and they deserve a lot more support than they get.