Video of Syrian fighter holding braid of 'SDF woman’s hair' causes global outrage

A video showing a militiaman reportedly affiliated with the Syrian government holding up a braid of hair he initially claimed to have cut from a female fighter belonging to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has gone viral, causing outrage on social media.

In the video, the man holds up a braid of hair and claims to have arrived recently from Raqqa, while the voice of another man mockingly asks, “No, why did you cut it off?”

The fighter responds, “She was gone anyway”, suggesting that the woman fighter was dead.

The other man appears to contradict this, saying, “It’s only her hair, she’s fine”.

The fighter refers to the woman as a “haval” – the Kurdish word for comrade.

Amid widespread outrage, Kurdish women began braiding their hair to show solidarity with the woman – whose identity, fate, and existence remain unknown.

The Hawar News Agency, which is close to the SDF, reported that women from around the world posted videos condemning the incident and braiding their hair in solidarity.

Among them was Abir Al-Sahlani, a Swedish member of the European Parliament of Iraqi origin, known for her support for Kurdish causes.

Her video was accompanied by the slogans “The Kurdish people are stronger than this terrorism” and “Kurdish women are greater than life”, according to Hawar.

Following the global outrage, the militiaman featured in the original video posted a further video saying that he was surprised that it had trended so widely and it was “only a joke”.

He claimed that the hair he was holding up was “artificial” and not from a real person, and that he had found it in a restaurant which he had visited.

He added that he had held it up while a friend of his began to film him, and that they had made the video as a prank. The man also said he had no idea his friend would publicly share the video.

However, this was met with scepticism from many social media users.

“How many times have people cursed you for this, what kind of friend is this who causes you to be damned a million times?” one Facebook user commented.

Ever since it was formed in 2015, the SDF has prominently featured women fighters, who fight in a militia known as the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ).

Fighting between the SDF and Syrian government forces began earlier this month in Aleppo, following the repeated stalling of a March 2025 agreement to integrate the SDF into Syrian state institutions.

Government forces have since captured most of the territory once held by the SDF in northeastern Syria – an area which is predominantly ethnically Arab.

Both sides have accused each other of atrocities, with the SDF previously claiming that government fighters beheaded four captured SDF militiamen. Video also appeared on social media purporting to show an SDF fighter boasting about killing 21 Arab prisoners near the town of Kobane.

A ceasefire is currently in effect between the SDF and government forces, but the government has accused the SDF of repeatedly violating it and has said it will resume fighting if SDF units do not integrate into the Syrian state.