29 / 92
The Kurdish question and the fight against Islamic State
27
As a result, the PYD created better relations with the Iraqi government, in order to use the
Iraqi border crossing in Rabia (Van Wilgenburg, June 2014).
The jihadist threat to Rojava
With Islamic State capturing more territory from rival rebels as from January 2014,
conflicts increased between the Kurds and Islamic State. While IS wanted to control the
Syrian-Turkish border for its foreign fighters to cross the border from Turkey, the YPG
wanted to control the Syrian-Turkish border in order to connect the three disconnected
Kurdish enclaves of Kobane, Afrin, and Jazara, which were often under siege by rival rebel
groups. The worst conflict between the two groups started when Islamic State launched
its attack on Kobane on September 15, 2014 (Van Wilgenburg, September 2014). Islamic
State launched the siege in response to the formation of a joint FSA-YPG operations room
to attack Islamic State in the countryside of Aleppo and Raqqah (Van Wilgenburg, July
2015). According to IS, “Ayn al Islam [Kobane] became a haven for every enemy of the
Khilafa [Caliphate]” (Van Wilgenburg, January 2015).
However, the IS attack on Kobane inadvertently led to US airstrikes supporting the Kurdish
rebels, leading them to recapture the town completely in January. The YPG alliance with Free
Syrian Army rebels capitalized on the anti-IS air support, expanding its reach and capturing
Tal Abyad on June 15, connecting the administrations of Kobane and Jazira (VanWilgenburg,
July 2015). Turkey responded to these advances by making clear that any attempts by the YPG
to advance more towards the town of Afrin would be crossing a redline (Bianet, July 2015).
Turkey feared that the Kurds would be able to connect all three enclaves in Syria and cut off
Turkey from large parts of the Syrian-Turkish border. Furthermore, Turkey complained about
ethnic cleansing of Arabs and Turkmen living in the area, which the YPG denied.
The Peshmerga forces and the KRG
While the fight against Islamic State is dominated by the PYD, in Iraq other Kurdish
parties play a dominant role. The Kurdish militia forces in Iraq are linked to the two ruling
parties: the Kurdistan Democratic Party led by Masoud Barzani which is ruled by the
Barzani tribe; and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan headed by Jalal Talabani, that split from
the KDP in 1975 and is led by a more urban intelligentsia.
The term “Peshmerga” (which means “those who face death”) was first coined in Iran
in 1946 by the short-lived Mahabad republic. Kurdish forces since then have been known
as Peshmergas in both Iran and Iraq after Mullah Mustafa Barzani, the grandfather of
Masoud Barzani, moved his forces from Iran to Iraq.
The Iraqi Kurds fought several wars against the Iraqi state in the 1970s, and the 1980s.
After 1991, the Iraqi Kurds managed to establish their own Kurdistan Regional Government
(KRG), after the withdrawal of Saddam Hussein’s forces following the implementation of
the no-fly zone by the West to protect the Kurds (Devigne 2011: 50). The Kurdish parties
fought each other in a brief civil war over resources in the 1990s. This led to the Kurdistan
region being divided into two administrations, with the PUK controlling Suleymaniyah
and the KDP Erbil and Duhok.