The Barzani campaigns changed across the Iraqi monarchy, Mahabad, exile and renewed war. Museum research and diplomatic documents explain air power, divided leadership and dependence on foreign support.

Men in Kurdish dress and suits gathered on a rocky hillside, several carrying rifles and ammunition belts
A historical photograph identified by Wikimedia Commons as showing Hejar, Mustafa Barzani, Ahmad Tofiq and Jalal Talabani among other men. The source dates it broadly to the 1960–1970 period; the precise occasion and photographer are unknown. Commons marks it public domain. [8] Photo: unknown photographer / Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.

1931–1932: air power and the early revolt

The RAF Museum’s account of 1932 records British aircraft supporting Iraqi troops against Sheikh Ahmed of Barzan. It describes bombing operations, warning leaflets and Kurdish-language broadcasts from a Vickers Victoria. [1] This institutional account establishes the role of air power and communication in the campaign; its language about warnings should not be treated as an independent measure of civilian safety. These operations belonged to the monarchy and British imperial setting, before the later wars with republican governments.

Mahabad, exile and the return to Iraq

Mustafa Barzani’s 1940 sresistance led him and his followers into Iran. Behn describes him as one of four generals associated with the 1946 Mahabad Republic, rather than its sole military commander. After its collapse he reached Soviet territory with followers, and returned to Iraq after the 1958 revolution. [2] The sequence crosses several political settings: an Iraqi revolt, service in an Iranian Kurdish republic, exile and return. It should not be compressed into forty years of one continuous campaign under unchanged leadership.

1961–1970: guerrilla war and an incomplete settlement

A 1972 U.S. intelligence study describes mountain-based forces, selective interruption of roads, local administration and rivalry between Barzani and leaders including Ibrahim Ahmad and Jalal Talabani. It estimated that Kurdish fighters held down four-fifths of Iraq’s armed forces during much of the intensive fighting. [3] That is a contemporary intelligence assessment, not an independently audited deployment total. The same document discusses the March 11, 1970 settlement and unresolved questions about territory, representation and security. [3] Military operations and negotiations were intertwined. Kurdish forces were not a single politically uniform organisation, and neither a fixed casualty total nor a claim of complete tactical invulnerability follows from this evidence.

The renewed war and the support programme

Kissinger’s memorandum to Nixon of June 24, 1974 states that U.S. financial and material support began in July 1972. It describes increasing Iraqi air strikes, artillery and troop attacks, and identifies Iranian support as substantially larger than the American contribution. Nixon approved the proposed $8.06 million for the following fiscal year. [4] This is a funding decision, not the total value of all assistance or the Kurdish movement’s entire budget. It shows why supplies and relations with outside states must accompany any account of mountain warfare.

March 1975: an agreement between states, a crisis for the Kurds

In a March 8 message, Ambassador Richard Helms relayed the Shah’s explanation of the Algiers negotiations with Saddam Hussein. The Shah described limits to Iran’s military commitment and proposed arrangements for Barzani’s followers to seek refuge. [5] Barzani’s March 10 letter to Kissinger presents the crisis from the Kurdish side: Iran had closed the border and ended assistance while Iraqi attacks continued. He appealed for intervention, negotiations and means of sustaining his people and fighters. [6] The documents disclose unequal bargaining power and sharply different priorities; a diplomatic assurance in one message was not proof that civilians could withdraw safely.

The war’s civilian aftermath

Human Rights Watch later documented displacement after the 1975 collapse, flight to Iran and deportation or resettlement within Iraq. [7] The history therefore extends beyond commanders’ choices to communities losing homes and security. The term peshmerga appears in the contemporary diplomatic record for Kurdish fighters, but the campaigns involved changing alliances, leadership disputes and external patrons. Their importance can be explained through these documented relationships without assigning the entire military tradition to one act of invention.

Sources and further reading

  1. RAF Museum, British Military Aviation in 1932: aircraft, leaflet drops and broadcasts in the Barzan campaign.
  2. Wolfgang Behn, Barzani, Encyclopaedia Iranica III/8 (1988), pp.840–841: Mahabad, Soviet exile and return.
  3. U.S. Bureau of Intelligence and Research, The Kurds of Iraq: Renewed Insurgency?,31 May 1972; FRUS 1969–1976,E–4, document 310, especially Civil War in Iraq 1960–1970.
  4. Kissinger to Nixon,24 June 1974, Fiscal Year 1975 Support for the Kurds; FRUS 1969–1976,XXVII, document 254, including approval note.
  5. Helms to Scowcroft,8 March 1975: account of the Shah’s explanation of Algiers negotiations; FRUSXXVII, document 276.
  6. Backchannel message transmitting Mustafa Barzani’s letter to Kissinger,10 March 1975; FRUSXXVII, document 278.
  7. Human Rights Watch, Whatever Happened to the Iraqi Kurds?,11 March 1991, persecution section: post 1975 displacement.
  8. Unknown photographer, Hejar, Mustafa Barzani, Ahmad Tofiq and Jalal Talabani, broadly dated 1960–1970, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.