KURDISTAN

UNITS, HISTORY, and ORGANIZATION

In the words of the Hamid Efendi, the commander of Kurdish forces, "Kirkuk is Kurdish. So are parts of Mosul. . . No one will again defeat us on Kurdish land . . . We will defend it down to the last life." (See map of historical Kurdistan

Admittedly, the Kurdish arsenal had been limited to mortars, heavy machine guns, anti-tank weapons and a few old Iraqi tanks.

The three million Kurds in northern Iraq have long fought the Iraqi government, and after a Kurdish uprising at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, allied forces have allowed the Kurds autonomy within a protected region.

Defending their land, the Kurdish army includes many battle-hardened veterans and those with para and with special ops training. During the U.S. led coalition against the Iraqi army , the Kurdish forces carried out missions and were part of the plan to hold the vital oil fields until the arrival of the American forces.

Plan B, Pentagon, as planners had dubbed it envisioned either U.S. troops swinging west in Iraq and racing to the northwest near Mosul, or flying airborne troops to the area, deploying them by parachute or landing on rough air strips in protected Kurdish territory.

Tthe U.S. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade out of Vicenza, Italy conducted a mass drop and with the Kurdish militias established a bridgehead to hold northern Kurdish-held territories and to secure the oil fields. They did this successfully.

Currently, Kurdish military personnel comprise a cohesive presence in the new military forces of the government of Iraq. Reportedly, Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan.

In December, 2005, five days of interviews with Kurdish leaders and troops in the region suggested some Kurdish troops that are formally under U.S. and Iraqi national command are preparing to protect territory and ethnic and religious interests in the event of Iraq's fragmentation, which many of them think is inevitable. In addition to putting former Peshmerga in the Iraqi army, the Kurds have deployed small Peshmerga units in buildings and compounds throughout northern Iraq, according to militia leaders. While it's hard to calculate the number of these active Peshmerga fighters, interviews with militia members suggest that it's well in excess of 10,000.