To what extent imprisoned for life Kurdish leader Abdullah “Apo” Öcalan’s recent conversion to anarchism [1] has impacted on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Kurds in general can be witnessed by the war raging right now between Syrian Kurds and the Islamic State (IS), a quasi-fascist death cult taking northern Iraq and Eastern Syria (Rojava) by storm in recent months. 
Öcalan, now only symbolic head of the PKK (historically a Leninist outfit born of the same struggles that spawned the third world liberationist movements of the 60s and 70s) had an epiphany of sorts (from his cell just off the coast of Turkey on the island of Imrali) declaring the aims of the PKK no longer that of overthrowing, through armed struggle, this or that state and creating a Kurdish homeland spanning Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran, but instead organizing communes and local communities, from the ground up, democratically, and in great reference to the thought of the late Murray Bookchin, major proponent of Libertarian Socialism (what Bookchin called “communalism”).
Such had become the program of the PKK (and by default the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, the Syrian political coalition heavily influenced by the PKK), following Öcalan’s rethinking of the very nature of the Kurdish struggle, and owing to the obvious nature of Leninist hierarchy [2], quickly put into practice by PKK militants, as soon as the situation allowed, in those towns and surrounding countrysides (cantons) in which the Syrian army essentially abandoned as the Syrian war raged atop the ashes of the 2011 Arab spring. Prepared to act on these ideas of con-federalism, equality, democracy and maximum participation (by all elements of society, Arabs, Kurds, Christians, Yazidis, etc) the organized elements got the ball rolling, filling a vacuum where the state had left empty.
Much has been written about this development that I wont repeat here (see links below). Suffice it to say, as IS gained strength and advantage, no doubt through assistance of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, perhaps even the U.S (and let’s not forget that the 2003 Iraq invasion set the stage), and routed time and again Iraqi and Syrian governmental forces, only the forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) in Kobane (just over the border from Turkey) and surrounding towns seemed determined to stand their ground. Indeed pictures from Kobane show energized and proud female fighters that remind so vividly of the Spanish anarchist Mujeres Libres of the 1930s. 
Even taking into account inevitable propaganda, its fairly certain that the Rojava Kurds are one of the most gender equal fighting forces on earth. And a great deal of this fact is attributable to the PKK.
It makes sense how such a ragtag force of freedom fighters (if there’s any other way to describe the fight against fanatical fascist thugs hell bent on subjugating the population, I don’t know of it) — with only AK-47s and small mortars, surrounded on three sides by a force of heavy weapons and tanks (pillaged from fleeing Iraqi and Syrian soldiers) keen on their total destruction, and pinched and cut off to the north by a country that seems more interested in seeing the YPJ/YPG destroyed than pushing back IS— could withstand such an onslaught. 
They’re not only defending their homes and families. They’re defending an idea, a philosophy of independence and autonomy, of democracy and true self-determination.
And they’re doing it with few real friends, save followers of the PKK, worldwide Kurds (Öcalan’s portrait is ubiquitous at solidarity rallies), and the greater part of the international anarchist movement. The U.S, following the initial platitudes of defeating IS by any means necessary, may be more concerned with Turkey’s desire to see more militant and revolutionary elements in the Kurdish world destroyed. [3] It’s no secret that Turkey favors more “moderate” (read US client) Kurdish political elements like Barzani and Talabani over radical, revolutionary elements inside Syrian and Turkey, and as a result have essentially become an ally of IS, in reality if not in words. It’s also clear that the last thing Barzani and the Iraqi Kurdish incipient state wants is for the PKK to remain in the lead with Kurds around the world or to see their own power threatened by the “communalism” of their western brethren.
But the Rojava, Öcalan and the PKK can’t be ignored, and public opinion worldwide as well as in Turkey and perhaps even increasingly in the Mideast is on the side of the Kurds of Rojava and the YPJ/YPG/PKK. Unfortunately Kobane may fall in the next few days, and as tragic and infuriating as it will be, the example that the Kurds of Rojava have already set for the world to take notice has already taken hold of millions of people’s imaginations. What Rojava has shown is that another world is possible, in the most “backward” part of the world, a place sandwiched between authoritarianism of the IS Islamicists and the authoritarianism of the U.S. client state Islamicists.
TFG Casper
UPDATE: It seems Turkey has had more of a hand in supplying and training IS than anyone previously thought: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1172632
[1] Although Öcalan hasn’t actually used the term “anarchism” to describe the PKK turn (nor have I found any other PKK militants using the phrase), it’s fairly safe to consider that what is taking place in Rojava is, for all intents and purposes, anarchistic. Of course what we call it is irrelevant. What matters is what it is.
[2] For some it will be an irony that a Leninist party like the PKK would use its hierarchical structure to quickly rework a left libertarian program, thereby, essentially, undermining its own hierarchical structure. An irony for some, but not those familiar with, for instance, the EZLN.
[3] It’s not easy squaring a desire to see a place like Kobane defended at all cost, while simultaneously opposing U.S. aggression in the Mideast, including so called “precision” bombing and drone strikes. The least we can demand is for the U.S. to somehow remove from Syria and Iraq the tanks and heavy weapons manufactured in the U.S. (and in Russia and China too) and left there after U.S. forces withdrew from the country. Baring that unlikely scenario, demanding the U.S. destroy those tanks may be the only available option, if fraught with typical dangers.
For a good summations of the movement in western Syria by Zaher Baher:
https://libcom.org/news/experiment-west-kurdistan-syrian-kurdistan-has-proved-people-can-make-changes-zaher-baher-2
On Bookchin and Öcalan, by Janet Biel:
http://new-compass.net/articles/bookchin-%C3%B6calan-and-dialectics-democracy
Very academically written study:
http://www.academia.edu/3983109/Democratic_Confederalism_as_a_Kurdish_Spring_the_PKK_and_the_quest_for_radical_democracy
Turkish anarchists join the defense of Kobane:
http://www.channel4.com/news/turkey-kurdish-islamic-state-kobani-taksim-anarchists-kurds
Great summation of Kobane and various facts by David Graeber:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/08/why-world-ignoring-revolutionary-kurds-syria-isis?CMP=fb_gu
Short piece by David Romano on the overall picture of Rojava
http://rudaw.net/english/opinion/091020141
