Hanna Bohman is a Canadian former model who decided to travel to Syria to become a fighter with the Kurdish Women's Protection Units (YPJ).
She decided to join the Kurdish forces in Syria after watching a propaganda video of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) featuring Canadian John Maguire.
[1][2] He had gone to fight for the militant group and appeared in propaganda videos to incite Canadians to launch attacks in their own country.
She was smuggled into the country and decided to join the YPJ because she felt they were fighting for women's rights in the region.
[2] In an interview of June 2017, she told the BBC that her intention was to help fight for women's rights in the Middle East.