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The mother of five was the sole woman among a joint force of Iraqi army and tribal militias who attacked the village of Kanous on Wednesday – one of multiple fronts in a campaign to drive the insurgents from their remaining strongholds in Iraq.

Like the men around her, Jubbouri said her motive for taking up arms was hatred of ISIS, which overran large parts of the country more than two years ago, meting out brutal punishments and killing its opponents, including several of her cousins.

“These soldiers are all my brothers; I am proud to be with them,” said Jubbouri, to voices of approval from the men standing around her. “They (ISIS) came to destroy Iraq but we will … burn those dogs.”

Despite the fighting talk, Jubbouri joined the ‘Lions of the Tigris’ tribal militia just 10 days ago and has no prior combat experience.

The men treat her more like a mascot than a sister in arms.

A Kalashnikov is slung across her small frame, but not once did Jubbouri fire it during Wednesday’s battle, and she remained a short distance behind the first line of fire.

They (the men) don’t let me go to the very front. They fear for me, but I want to go,” said Jubbouri apparently unperturbed by the deafening sound of mortars being fired at Kanous – her hometown.

During the two years she lived there under Islamic State rule, Jubbouri said she secretly informed Iraqi security forces about the militants’ movements, and flouted their order that women veil their faces.

She left Kanous with her family this summer and joined thousands more displaced Iraqis at a camp in the Kurdish region, where her husband was picked up by security services and put in jail.

Jubbouri is not sure why, but said her husband’s name may have been confused with that of a suspect, or that someone bearing a grudge against him may have accused him of links with the militants. “As far as I know he’s done nothing wrong,” she added.

After her husband was detained, Jubbouri went south to Tikrit and left her children – aged between one and nine – in the custody of a relative so she was free to join the fight against Islamic State.

“My children cried and said, ‘We are scared you will die’,” Jubbouri said. “I told them I won’t.”

Neither her father nor mother are alive, and Jubbouri did not tell her uncles, who might have objected to her taking up arms. Her mother-in-law however encouraged Jubbouri to go and avenge the death of a son who was killed by insurgents in 2012.

Jubbouri’s husband, who remains in a Kurdish prison, is not aware of his wife’s militia role. “He wouldn’t be satisfied … but he knows I am a wolf, that I am a fighter and that I am like a man,” she said.

Backed by the Iraqi government, the Lions of the Tigris’ ranks are drawn from young local men, many of whom used to be in the army and have lost friends and loved ones to the militants.

The men asked to have their photograph taken beside Jubbouri and said she would be awarded the home of an ISIS fighter in Kanous after it was liberated.