Hêvî Îbrahîm

On 19 January 2018, the Turkish government announced Operation Olive Branch to "establish security and stability on our borders and region, to eliminate terrorists of PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG and Daesh." The operation directly declared Îbrahîm's party, the PYD, and its affiliates as main targets, while labeling the group terrorists to justify the invasion. Regarding the first weekend of skirmishes and heavy bombardment, Îbrahîm described the situation; "Most of the wounded are civilians. There are clashes. There's artillery and shelling. Our units are fiercely responding to the occupation."

Among those who had fled the region due to the Turkish advance was Îbrahîm, who spoke at a meeting of Afrin women in the al-Shahba canton on 9 May 2018. She called upon the people of Afrin to be proud of the historic nature of their resistance, "Our peoples must be proud of their resistance which has put its mark in the history of resistances of the peoples who call for their freedom and who are stuck to their land and identity. This resistance will be perpetuated by history because the resistance of our people for fifty-eight days proved to the world that our people have the will of strong resistance based on the adherence to the martyrs' blood."

On 3 October 2018, the Northern and Eastern Syria Autonomous Administration Executive Assembly, essentially the governing body of all regions of Rojava, held a meeting to elect the executives of the committees in the assembly. Îbrahîm was elected co-chair of the Interior Affairs Committee alongside fellow co-chair Elî Mustefa Heco. Typical to the Rojava model, one man and one woman head each committee.

Hêvî Îbrahîm Mustefa is the Democratic Union Party (PYD) prime minister of the Afrin Region (originally Afrin Canton until August 2017), a de facto autonomous region of the Democratic Federation of North and East Syria.

In April 2017, Russian forces arrived in northern Syria as part of an agreement between Afrin YPG commanders and Russian military command in Syria. Russian forces set up a military installation in northern region of Afrin, along the Turkish border. The presence of Russian troops was seen as an attempt by the Afrin region to deter a Turkish Army invasion of YPG controlled positions.

On 19 February 2016, after indicating that they may send ground forces into Syria, Turkey began shelling the city of Afrin and other Kurdish villages, killing at least five civilians. Additionally, al Nusra joined in the attack, shelling various Kurdish headquarters throughout Afrin. The Turkish forces attacked from Kilis, in the north, and Sucukoy, in the west, with the Turkish crossing about 1000 feet into northern Syria. The Turkish forces operation was an attempt to cutoff the YPG from connecting the Afrin and Kobane cantons, while also carving out territory for a wall to be constructed along Syria's northern border for "security and to prevent smuggling." For over a year, Turkish and Afrin YPG forces participated in on-again, off-again conflict, mainly involving Turkey targeting the Afrin city and countryside with artillery strikes.

Between 2015 and 2017, she gave various statements to Arab, Western, Kurdish, and PKK media outlets about the situation in Afrin and called Abdullah Öcalan the leader of the Kurdish people with their principles based on his teachings.

By early 2015, YPG fighters in the Afrin region had reached a truce with al Nusra, while the PKK and Turkey ceasefire continued. This lack of violence allowed for the further political and cultural development of the Rojava framework in Afrin.

On 25 July 2015, the PKK formally ended its ceasefire with the Turkish forces after the PKK was blamed for the death of four Turkish police officials and Turkish forces retaliated by bombing PKK camps in Iraq. Around a month after, the fragile truce held between al Nusra and Afrin YPG fighters came to an end following the mortar shelling of villages near Jinderis, in Afrin. The attack marked the first instance of violence in the region since February 2015, killing five civilians and injuring dozens more. The YPG forces responded with artillery fire on the al Nusra headquarters.

After the Syrian Government forces pulled out of the region in 2012, amidst the Syrian Civil War, the framework of the Rojava movement became a reality. On 29 January 2014, as the Afrin Canton declared autonomy, following similar declarations earlier in the month by the Kobane and Jazira, Îbrahîm was appointed Prime Minister. Her appointment marked the highest political position a Kurdish woman had held in modern times and she was the only female prime minister appointed of the three Rojava cantons. In an interview in 2014, she stated the declaration of autonomy was, in part, a response to the PYD having been excluded from the Geneva II conference, declaring that Rojava would not recognize any decision made by the conference.

As prime minister, she attended meetings with officials from European Parliament as part of an Afrin Canton delegation that included Sûleyman Cafer, Cihan Muhammed, Foreign Minister and Deputy Foreign Minister, respectively, and PYD European Executive Committee member Ibrahim Ibrahim. In November 2014, the delegation met with multiple groups including, Elmar Brok, head of the European Parliament's Foreign Relations Commission, Gabi Zimmer, President of Left Group, and Rebecca Harms, Co-President of Green Group. The delegation discussed topics ranging from their military struggle with ISIS and al Nusra, their vision for a model of democratic autonomy, to their expectations of assistance from Europe given their various impending threats.

The Afrin Canton was the least affected Rojava canton by the combat of the Syrian Civil War, given they did not share a border with the Islamic State. Îbrahîm described it in a 30 July 2014 interview as, "comparatively quiet," stating, "At this point, we have a sort of coexistence with the FSA and the government troops stationed in Nubl. As long as they don't attack us, we don't attack them." In the same interview in 2014, Îbrahîm showed optimism regarding the tranquility and diversity that had been achieved in Afrin, despite the ongoing regional conflict; "We have Sunnis, Shiites, Yazidi, and Alevi here who live together peacefully. In Afrin, there are Kurds, Arabs, and other minorities who have no problems with each other. They share a certain cohesion, which shows that this could also be the case in other parts of Syria."

Îbrahîm spent considerable time in Aleppo, working as a teacher for twenty-five years. She began teaching in her early twenties, in 1987, before moving to the city of Afrin amidst the unrest and uncertainty of the Syrian Civil War in 2012.

Îbrahîm has no published political manifesto and most of what is known of her views is observed through her actions as a revolutionary. However, Îbrahîm has referred to Abdullah Öcalan as the leader of the Kurdish people and that his teachings have been adopted as principles by Kurds. This is not surprising as her party, the PYD, is ideologically aligned with the banned PKK party, founded by Öcalan in 1978. The party has been banned in Turkey following its armed insurgency that began in 1978.

Îbrahîm was born in Mabeta in the province of Aleppo, part of the Afrin Region. It is unclear exactly how her family ended up in Mabeta, with one theory suggesting that her family was forced to flee the Tunceli Province during the Dersim rebellion in 1937–38. However, the theory lacks evidence and it is generally believed her family originated from one of two possible cities in Turkey, Kahramanmaraş or Adiyaman.