Kurdish experiences during the Second World War included service in the Iraq Levies, revolt against the Iraqi state and political change under the occupation of Iran. These distinct histories also help explain the postwar Mahabad republic.

Iraq Levies recruits in traditional clothing drilling in rows at Habbaniya, facing an instructor wearing a broad-brimmed hat
Iraq Levies recruits training at Habbaniya during the Second World War. Sgt Smith, No.1 Army Film and Photographic Unit; Imperial War Museums E 11584. The photograph records a multi-community force and does not establish each recruit’s ethnicity. Sgt Smith · No. 1 AFPU · IWM E11584 · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (expired historical Crown copyright).

Different experiences within one regional war

The wartime history of Kurdish communities involves different states, institutions and political choices. Kurdish personnel served alongside Assyrian and Arab personnel in the Iraq Levies, while another Kurdish movement challenged the Iraqi government. [1][3] In Iran, British and Soviet occupation altered the relationship between local communities and central authority. [2] These cases deserve their own chronology. The previous article’s claim that Kurdish territories became a battlefield between British and Japanese forces was unsupported and has been removed, together with its unreferenced account of one general Kurdish guerrilla campaign against the Axis.

Kurdish service in the Iraq Levies

Air Commodore Mickey Witherow’s institutional history identifies Kurdish Levy service alongside Assyrian and Arab units against Rashid Ali in 1941. It also describes later service by Kurdish paratroopers in southern Europe, against the Axis and against the Greek ELAS. His account dates the force’s renaming as the RAF Levies (Iraq) to 1942. [1] This is evidence for named military service within a British-commanded organisation. The force brought together several communities; neither its achievements nor the individual recruits in the photograph should be assigned wholesale to one ethnicity.

Barzani’s 1943 revolt was a different political project

A retrospective US intelligence assessment published in the Foreign Relations of the United States series identifies Mulla Mustafa Barzani as the leader of the Kurdish revolt of 1943 and later as a military commander at Mahabad in 1946. [3] Its brief historical description appears within a document about possible American assistance in 1972. That later purpose should remain visible when using it. The wartime revolt and Kurdish service in the Levies belong to different institutional histories. Neither makes every Kurdish community part of one political or military organisation.

Iran’s occupation in 1941

Ronald W. Ferrier dates the British–Soviet invasion of Iran to 25 August 1941 and Reza Shah’s abdication to 16 September. He explains the importance of supplying the Soviet Union through Iran and notes that Tehran’s authority remained restricted, particularly in the north, while Allied forces stayed. [2] This provides the wider setting for political change around Mahabad. Wartime occupation involved external military power and weakened central control; it did not itself establish a Kurdish state or guarantee a later territorial settlement.

Mahabad in May 1945: a contested garrison

Ambassador Leland Morris’s dispatch of 5 May 1945 describes a dispute over sending Iranian troops from Saqqiz to Mahabad. Soviet authorities obstructed the move, while Kurds also opposed the proposed garrison. Morris acknowledged contradictory information and uncertainty about whether the Iranian–Soviet arrangements rested on a written agreement. [4] His report is a contemporary diplomatic account of an unresolved local situation. It shows how Kurdish opposition, Iranian state authority and Soviet occupation intersected before the republic’s proclamation, without requiring an assumption that these participants shared the same objectives.

The Mahabad republic belongs to the postwar aftermath

Michael M. Gunter dates the proclamation of the Mahabad republic to 22 January 1946 and its collapse to that December. He records Kurdish teaching, translation and printing during its short existence. [5] A US telegram of 29 April 1946 discouraged officials from visiting Qazi Muhammad as guests because of the political implications for Iran, Iraq and Turkey; an editorial footnote records the travel ban’s removal on 7 May. [6] These dates distinguish wartime conditions from postwar institutions and diplomacy. Military service, political organisation and an external power’s support did not necessarily produce the same outcome.

Sources and further reading

  1. Mickey Witherow, RAF Associated Overseas Ground Forces, Royal Air Force Historical Society Journal 49 (2010), especially p.136; Levy service and organisation.
  2. Ronald W. Ferrier, Anglo-Iranian Relations iii. Pahlavi Period, Encyclopaedia Iranica (1985; updated 2016), section 3, The War Years; invasion and occupation.
  3. FRUS 1969–1976, Volume E–4, document 321, attached preliminary estimate, paragraph 48; retrospective account of Barzani’s 1943 revolt and 1946 role.
  4. FRUS 1945, Volume VIII, document 333; Leland Morris to Secretary of State, 5 May 1945, on Mahabad and the proposed Iranian garrison.
  5. Michael M. Gunter, Historical Dictionary of the Kurds (2004), pp.129–130, Mahabad Republic of Kurdistan; existing lawful local research copy.
  6. FRUS 1946, Volume VII, document 325; Acheson telegram, 29 April 1946, and editorial footnote concerning 7 May travel-ban removal.
  7. Sgt Smith, No.1 Army Film and Photographic Unit, Iraq Levies in Training at Habbaniya, IWM E 11584; historical Crown photograph, public domain, Wikimedia Commons.