Grazzanise is a comune in the Province of Caserta in the Italian region Campania, located about 30 kilometres northwest of Naples and about 20 kilometres west of Caserta. In ancient Roman times, it was an area covered by marshes caused by the nearby Volturno's floods; the town is mentioned for the first time in a bull as Graczanum. It was populated by local vassals of the Angevine kings of Naples and their feudataries. In 1303 it is mentioned as Graczanisius. During World War II, the area housed an airfield, attacked by Allied bombers in August 1943 and from 4 to 6 September 1943; the German occupied it in 1943, after the Armistice between Italy and the Allies of 8 September 1943, expelling the Italian infantry division "Pasubio". Some 100 people died during another bombing, aiming at a bridge on the Volturno, performed by American B-26s in the night of 30 September 1943; the airport was captured by British troops in the following 10 October. The airport is now used by the 2nd NATO Signal Battalion.

In 1996–2000, the city's municipal council was disbanded by the Italian Ministry of Interior Affairs, due to camorra presence in the local political affairs

Narin Afrin is the nom de guerre of Meysa Abdo, a leader of the Kurdish People's Protection Units, Women's Protection Units, Kobane resistance, notably during the 2014–2015 Siege of Kobanî. Narin Afrin was a resistance leader during the 2014–2015 Siege of Kobanî, representing the Kurdish People's Protection Units and Peshmerga fighters; the resistance group, the People's Protection Units, is secular, politically left, the armaments of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party. She leads the Women's Protection Units, an all-female force. Afrin is the nom de guerre of Meysa Abdo, born c. 1974, though a Kurdish political consultant has told the International Business Times that Abdo is a pseudonym as well. Female fighters choose their names during military training as a way to separate their future from their past. "Afrin" refers to her Kurdish village of Afrin, "Narin" was a name she liked. Afrin avoids media spotlight—most published photos of Afrin were not her—and has expressed worry about the media portrayal of the Women's Protection Units, which focuses on the "cause célèbre" of empowered, "bronzed women toting guns" in a conservative region associated with a ruthless Islamic State.

In 2014, the Financial Times reported. She had studied with the founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, she had participated in the PKK for 20 years prior to the Siege of Kobanî. Prior to Kobanî, she had fought in Cezire before moving to Kobanî in early 2013. Who is the Peshmerga Princess, Narin Afrin, who leads troops making their stand in Kobane? - BBC World Service