Um Hanadi

Iraqi housewife 'cooked the heads' of ISIS fighters

Immediately they went quiet, each adjusting his weapon and standing up straight as if he'd been called to attention.

This is a woman who commands respect, I thought. She keeps a Beretta 9-millimeter pistol in a holster under her left arm. The area around the trigger was silver where the paint had worn off.

The woman in question, 39-year-old Wahida Mohamed -- better known as Um Hanadi -- leads a force of around 70 men in the area of Shirqat, a town 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Mosul, Iraq.