Peshmerga
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Peshmerga | |
|---|---|
| Active | 1890-Present |
| Country | Iraqi Kurdistan Region |
| Branch | Army |
| Type | Special forces |
| Role | Domestic defense |
| Size | 175,000 [1] |
| Garrison/HQ | Kurdistan National Assembly (KNA) |
| March | Ey Reqîb (English: "Hey Guardian") |
| Battles/wars | - World War I - The Republic of Kurdistan War - The Kurdish-Iraqi War - The Second Kurdish-Iraqi War - Iran-Iraq War - Operation Desert Storm - Operation Iraqi Freedom - (Various other Battle/Wars) |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders |
- Mahmud Barzanji - Shaikh Said Piran - Mustafa Barzani - Nawshirwan Mustafa - Jalal Talabani - Massoud Barzani |
Peshmerga, peshmarga or peshmerge (Kurdish: pêşmerge) is the term used by Kurds to refer to armed Kurdish fighters. Literally meaning "those who face death" (pêş front + merg death e is) the peshmerga forces of Kurdistan have been around since the advent of the Kurdish independence movement in the early 1920s, following the collapse of the Ottoman and Qajar empires which had jointly ruled over the area always known as Kurdistan. The term was coined by the Kurdish leader and writer Ibrahim Ahmed. Peshmerga forces often wear traditional Kurdish garbs, e.g. sharwal (baggy trousers) and a plain jacket, with colourful sashes.
Peshmerga forces are often affiliated to prominent personalities such as Mahmud Barzanji or are affiliated to political parties such as the PUK, KDP.
[edit] History
Through much of the late 1900s, Peshermga often came into conflict with Iraqi forces, using Guerilla Warfare style tactics against them. Many of these Peshmerga were led by Mustafa Barzani of the PDK, while others were under the command of the PUK. After Mustafa Barzani's death, his son Masoud Barzani took his position. Most of the Peshmerga's efforts were to keep a region under the specific party's control and to fight off any incursions by the Republican Guard of Iraq. They also came into conflict with PKK forces who came across the border from Turkey.
Following the First Gulf War, Northern Iraq fell into a state of civil war between the KDP and PUK, and their peshmerga forces were used to fight each other.
During the 2006 Anfal campaign trial, the defense team of Saddam Hussein said Peshmerga, a group of separatist guerillas, sided with Iran in its war with Iraq.[1]
[edit] The Kurdish Warrior Tradition and the Importance of the Peshmerga
[edit] Early Kurdish Warriors
[edit] The Roots of the Peshmerga (1890-1958)
[edit] The Hamidiya Cavalry (1891-1908)
In 1891 Sultan Abd al Hamid authorized the establishment of an irregular mounted force in eastern Anatolia, designating it after himself, the Hamidiya Cavalry. The intention was to imitate the Russian Cossack regiments which had been used so effectively as scouts and skirmishers in the Caucasus.
Given the social context of the region, the Hamidiya was raised from selected Sunni Kurdish tribes, preferably of proven loyalty, to form mounted regiments of approximately 600 men. In many cases these regiments were drawn solely from one tribe, and its commanding officer was the tribal chief. In cases where tribes were too small, each might provide a squadron for a composite regiment. In any case tribal solidarity was always maintained by keeping fellow tribesmen in one unit.
There were enormous advantages for both a chief invited to levy a regiment, and for his recruits. Chiefs and their officers were to be sent to a special military school in Istanbul. They were outfitted in dashing Cossack-styled uniforms to lend weight to their new status. Hamidiya tribes were exempted from one of the most unpopular measures of Ottoman centralization, the liability for conscription which was being introduced into the region for the very first 'time. Hamidiya chiefs were invited to send their sons to one of the tribal schools established in both Istanbul and Kurdistan, in order to absorb them into the Ottoman establishment. In some of the principal 'Hamidiya' villages the authorities also offered to establish schools for the population. Since Kurdistan was the most neglected, backward and impoverished corner of the empire, the offer held serious attraction.
The ostensible purpose of the Hamidiya Cavalry was to provide a bulwark against the Russian threat. It was important to stiffen the resolve of Kurds as part of the empire, especially as some tribes inside Ottoman territory had been willing to support czar versus sultan in previous wars. Besides, an increasing number of tribes had fallen inside Russia's orbit in the Caucasus. The formal deployment of the Hamidiya regiments was primarily along an axis from Erzerum to Van.
Yet the fact that the Hamidiya tribes were an irregular force only to be marshalled in units greater than regimental strength on the instructions of the mushir, or military commander, meant that in practice these regiments remained disposed in their usual habitat except when called upon for duty. Furthermore it was generally suspected that most Hamidiya tribesmen would desert rather than move too far from their encampments and livestock.
It was not long before the creation of the Hamidiya led to trouble. For one thing, squabbles and fights broke out between various chiefs for senior rank within one tribe, and for another, local commanders did not differentiate between enemies of their tribe qua tribe, and enemies of the Hamidiya Cavalry. Scores soon started to be settled between Hamidiya tribes, armed by the state, and local adversaries. The powerful Sunni Jibran tribe, which had fielded four Hamidiya regiments, soon started attacking the Alevi Khurmaks, confiscating their lands. As reviled Alevis, or Qizilbash, it was not surprising that the state authorities did nothing to obtain redress for them or for other Alevi tribes suffering similarly. But even Sunni tribes not similarly favoured with Hamidiya status were liable to land theft by force of arms. H.RB. Lynch who was travelling in the region in 1894 wrote of recent pillaging bands around Erzerum:
It is well known that these bands were led by officers in the Hamidiyeh regiments tenekelis, or tin-plate men, as they are called by the populace, from the brass badges they wear in their caps. The frightened officials, obliged to report such occurrences, take refuge behind the amusing euphemism of such a phrase as "brigands, disguised as soldiers.'
When the government could not afford to pay Hamidiya officers, it offered them tax-collecting rights on local Armenian villages, causing further hardship for the latter. In several cases a Kurdish chief was not only commander of a Hamidiya regiment but also the local civil authority.
Such circumstances apart, those who sought recourse to government still found that the civil administration had no power to restrain the Hamidiya, who were answerable solely to the mushir of the Fourth Army in Erzerum. The mushir, Zakki Pasha, who happened to be the sultan's brother-in-law, was subject not to the wali but direct to Istanbul. He was clearly using the Hamidiya as the instrument of a policy that had little in common with the brief of the civil administration of the region. The civil administration had nothing but contempt for the Hamidiya, a view echoed by British military consuls:
The Hamidiye troops, in fact, are under no control whatever, beyond that of their own native Chief, which does not appear to be exercised much in the interests of law and order. It is a curious sight to see Kurds walking about the streets of the town [Bashkale) in their native costume.... They have a habit of taking what they require out of the shops without payment.
The lawless activities of the Hamidiya set an example which non-Hamidiya tribal Kurds were soon to imitate. In fact there were any number of young swells anxious to look the part. Local blacksmiths did a roaring trade with such dandies, forging Hamidiya badges for wear with lambskin busbies. As with the Hamidiya, the civil authorities found themselves powerless to curb them, while the army commanders ignored or indulged tribal excesses.
Although most affrays initially were inter-tribal ones, it was the client peasantry, Muslim and Christian, which suffered most. Soon it became clear both that the Armenians were the primary targets, and that the Hamidiya was egged on or even deliberately directed by the Ottoman military authorities.
The growth of the Armenian problem has already been discussed. By the early 1890s it had deteriorated considerably. Largely because after their experiences in the i877-78 war some Armenians had finally begun to react to the provocations, depredations and persecution suffered at the hands of the Ottoman authorities, the Kurdish tribes and the Muslim citizens of mixed towns and cities. In 1882 'Protectors of the Fatherland', almost certainly a revolutionary group, was uncovered in Erzerum. In1885 the Armenakan Party began to operate from Van, supported by groups in Russian Transcaucasia and Iran. After its formation in 1887 the internationalist Hunchak Party established armed cells in eastern Anatolia and Russian Transcaucasia. In 1889 an armed Armenakan group was caught crossing the frontier from Persia. Other militant groups appeared, giving rise to paranoia both in Istanbul and in the eastern provinces. In 1893 seditious placards appeared on the walls of several Anatolian towns. Agitators tried to arouse dissident Alevi tribes in Dersim and peasant Kurds around Sasun, reputedly descended from convert Armenians.
However, the event that paved the way for more widespread attacks on Armenians took place in Sasun district, south of Mush where a Hunchak group had intermittently ambushed and killed Kurds since 1882. In summer 1894 an affray between Armenian villagers and the local qaim-maqam concerning tax arrears gave the pretext for wholesale massacre in which local Hamidiya tribesmen played a prominent part. Over 1,000 villagers probably perished. By spring 1895 the representatives of Britain, France and Russia wanted reforms for the Armenian provinces: an amnesty for Armenian prisoners; 'approved' governors; reparations for victims of the outrages at Sasun and elsewhere; Kurdish nomadic movements to be allowed only under surveillance and for them generally to be encouraged to settle; and the Hamidiya to be disarmed. Abd al Hamid agreed to these demands but deliberately neglected to implement them. Continued level of insecurity had reduced agriculture to famine levels by 1897-98.
For a year there was relative quiet, but on 30 September1895 a violent incident took place between Armenian demonstrators and police in Istanbul, which marked the beginning of a more widespread attack on Armenians in the city, in which hundreds perished, some at the hands of the many Kurdish porters there. A week later over 1,100 Armenians were massacred in and around Trabzon. By the end of October there had been massacres in Erzinjan, Bidis, Erzerum and elsewhere, in each of which hundreds were killed. In the first ten days of November about 1,000 Armenians perished in Diyarbakır, almost 3,000 each in Arabkir and Malatya. More massacres followed, in Kharput, Sivas, Kayseri and Urfa. The perpetrators were a mixture of Muslim citizenry, both Turks and Kurds, and Ottoman soldiers, including the Haniidiya.
Some Armenian villages stood up to this harassment and won the begrudging respect of the tribes. Some became Muslim, others invited Kurdish chiefs to settle in their villages at the cost of offering inducements, for 'policemen have to be paid.' By 1897 even the urban Turkish population had begun to protest about the intolerably disruptive effect of the Hamidiya Kurds.
Why did Sultan Abd al Hamid allow such mayhem in his eastern provinces? Was the Hamidiya deliberately raised in order to destroy the Armenian population? Armenians were not alone in seeing sinister, indeed genocidal designs in the Hamidiya. They had been raised ostensibly in order to mobilize the Kurdish tribes as auxiliaries in the event of another war with Russia.
It was well known that some Kurds - both Sunni and Alevi tribes - had responded to intermittent Russian overtures since the war of. 1827-29. The Russians had skilfully exploited tribal unhappiness with both the centralization that had led to suppression of the old amirates, and the reforms which seemed to favour the Christian peasantry. Similarly the Russians fomented the tribes, particularly the Alevi Kurds of Dersim, during the Crimean War in 1854, and 1877-78. Fear of Kurdish disaffection remained real. In fact, not long after the establishment of the Hamidiya, the Russians invited a disaffected Badr Khan to Tiflis to discuss the formation of a pro-Russian counterweight.
Enrolment of tribesmen, exemptions from taxation, the education of tribal officers, and particularly chiefs' sons, in Istanbul were all part of an attempt to draw the Kurds more closely into the fabric of the empire. In principle it was a good idea. The more the Kurdish tribes were integrated into the Ottoman regime, the more secure would be the eastern border and, hopefully, the tamer the Kurds. In practice integration never really happened. The tribes remained wild while some of the chiefs took town houses.
It was also a policy of weakness. Sultan Abd al Hamid could not afford to alienate the Kurds, neither militarily nor indeed with regard to tax collection. For the tribes, rapacious as they were, could facilitate or ftustrate the collection of taxes in the countryside. So he permitted their depredations, and as Army Commander in Erzerum his brother-in-law, Zakki Pasha, indulged and protected them from local civil administrators. He could have crushed them, but only by virtual military occupation of the region, creating tension with Russia and alienating the Kurdish tribes.
It was also as much out of weakness as deliberate policy that Abd al Hamid allowed the Hamidiya to inflict such suffering on the Armenians. By 1895 neither the average Hamidiya tribesman nor Turkish soldier made any distinction between Armenian peasants and revolutionaries, The tanzimat had risked alienating the tribes already, better now to allow them free rein. So Abd al Hamid swallowed the European reforms thrust upon him in Istanbul but made sure, by putting the Hamdiya under Zakki Pasha rather than the civil authorities, that they could never be properly implemented. Law and order took second place to loyalty on this vulnerable border.
Nevertheless, the Hamidiya Cavalry was clearly a failure. On the whole, there was little sign of integration into a wider Ottoman context. On the contrary, through the licence allowed to the Hamicliya regiments, tribalism enjoyed a strong resurgence. Furthermore, as the local British consul reported, 'Zeki [Pasha] is a king among them; they recognize no authority but his. The opinion is that he means to make himself a Prince of an independent Kurdistan."' It is unlikely Sultan Abd al Hamid distrusted Zakki Pasha for he was only removed from his post after his own overthrow in 1908.
Yet the revival of tribal power was a different matter. However much Abd al Hamid was opposed to reform, he could hardly have had in mind a reversion to the tribal principalities his forebear Mahmud II had abolished. By 1900, with fears of Russian attack abating and popular irritation with the Hamidiya mounting, Zakki Pasha began to curb their excesses and punish Hamidiya chiefs who only a year or two earlier could have counted on protection. Yet, even so, they remained a menace. As the empire slid towards revolution, it was not seditious Turks but the Hamidiya chiefs who still gave provincial governors the real cause for concern. Even on the battlefield the Hamidiya proved a disappointment, and several regiments were disbanded.
After the overthrow of Abd al Hamid's regime by the Committee of Union and Progress in 1908, a theme discussed more fully in the next chapter, the Hamidiya regiments were renamed as 'Tribal Regiments' (ashirat alaylan) but remained essentially the same. The triumph of the Young Turks, the threat which they posed to supporters of the ancien regime, and their reversion to authoritarian and explicitly Turkish rule after a brief spate of liberalism led to disorder in many parts of the empire: within Kurdistan itself, among the Bulgars of Macedonia, the Catholic tribes of northern Albania, in Yemen where a new Mahdi proclaimed himself, and among the formidable Druzes of the Syrian Hawran.
Tribal regiments were sent to some of these trouble spots alongside regular troops. Tribal contingents were despatched to Yemen in 1908 and to Albania in 1911 where they performed badly, sustaining heavy losses, and acquiring a reputation for savagery while restoring order. Indeed, it could be said that on the eve of the First World War, the Kurds were generally noted mainly for their disorderliness, banditry and harassment of the Armenians.
Thus the nineteenth century ended with a firmer Ottoman grip on the towns of the region, but a more volatile situation with simmering inter-communal conflict, lawless tribes and the now familiar pattern of periodic Russian land seizures - a mixture finally detonated in autumn 1914.
[edit] Kurdish Forces in WWI (1914-1918)
[edit] Shaykh Mahmud Barzanji Revolt (1919-1923)
[edit] Shaykh Said Revolt (1920-1925)
[edit] Khoybun (The Ararat Revolt) (1927-1930)
[edit] Emergence of Barzani’s Forces and the Barzani Revolt (1943-1945)
[edit] The Republic of Kurdistan - Mahabad (1945-1946)
In 1941 Britain and the USSR partitioned Iran into two zones of control in order to prevent the country from entering the war on the side of Germany. In the Soviet zone, the Kurds of northwest Iran enjoyed de facto independence. At war's end, Teheran pressured the Soviets to leave, which they did in December 1945. As they left, the Kurds formally proclaimed themselves independent in January 1946, with their capital at Mahabad. The government included many Kurds from Iraq, including Mustafa Barzani, the army commander. Their forces were Soviet-equipped and uniformed, but they owed no ideological allegiance to the USSR. Their flag was the tricolor of the Kurdish Communist Party (Komala) plus a golden sun in the center.
Teheran gradually marshalled its forces, and when they were satisfied the Soviets would not intervene they crushed the Mahabad Republic in December 1946. The leaders were executed, but Barzani led the Iranian forces on a wild goose chase and eventually escaped to the Soviet Union. His escapades contributed much to Kurdish legend and nostalgia for independence. In 1946 he founded the Kurdish Democratic Party, Partiya Demokrata Kurdistane (PDK).
[edit] Post-Mahabad Journeys and Conflicts (1946-1947)
[edit] Peshmerga in the USSR (1947-1958)
[edit] The Peshmerga in Modern Iraq (1958-2003)
[edit] Barzani's Return to Iraq / Prelude to War (1958-1961)
[edit] The Kurdish-Iraqi War (1961-1970)
Mustafa Barzani allied the KDP (PDK) with Israel in 1963.[citation needed] The peshmerga were trained and commanded by officers from Israels military intelligence and the Israelis participated in the Kurdish war from 1965.[citation needed] The Israeli-commanded peshmerga were highly effective and killed thousands of Iraqi troops.[citation needed]
[edit] Peshmerga and the Barzani-Talabani/Ahmed Split
[edit] The Second Kurdish-Iraqi War (1974-1975)
Israel's military presence in Kurdistan was evacuated after the US and Iran abandoned Iraq's Kurds.[citation needed] The Kurdish troops were now left without their Israeli officers.[citation needed]
[edit] Creation of the PUK (1975-1979)
The PUK, lead by Jalal Talibani, broke off from the KDP in the 1970's as a result of disagreement between the two party leaders. Becoming the second biggest party in Northern Iraq, the PUK and the KDP would soon pursue a rivalry that would even lead to war between the two factions.
[edit] The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)
[edit] 1989-1990
[edit] Peshmerga During Operation Desert Storm (1990-1991)
In the wake of the First Persian Gulf War (aka "Operation Desert Storm": January to March 1991), humanitarian considerations drove the United States to establish two "no-fly" zones in Iraq: one zone was in southern Iraq, where the Hussein regime had viciously persecuted the Shiite Arabs; the other zone was in the Kurdish territory in northern Iraq. The Baghdad government was forbidden to operate any aircraft in either of these zones, a proscription enforced by United States military assets in the region. Unable to use air power in the north, and with its conventional capabilities having been all but demolished during Desert Storm, Baghdad had little choice to but to sit by and witness the rebirth of the Kurdish self-governing region. American and Israeli training turned the peshmerga into a highly effective military force.
[edit] The 1991 Uprisings
[edit] 1991-1995
[edit] The Kurdish Civil War (1995-1998)
The civil war among the peshmergas of the PUK and the KDP held up the military development of the peshmerga as the attention was no longer on outside threats.
[edit] 1998-2003
[edit] Peshmerga During Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003)
[edit] Peshmerga in the New Iraq (2003-Present)
The Peshmerga are allied with the American-led coalition. The Peshmergas of the PUK and the KDP are now united.[citation needed] They are considered an effective military force.[citation needed]
[edit] The New Peshmerga Military
[edit] Current State
Peshmerga forces fought side by side with American troops in the 2003 Iraq War in Iraqi Kurdistan. Since that time the Peshmerga have assumed full responsibility for the security of the Kurdish areas of Northern Iraq.
In early 2005 it was speculated by Newsweek magazine that Peshmerga forces could be trained by the US to take on Sunni rebels in Iraq.
In late 2004, when Arab Iraqi Police and ING (Iraqi National Guard) units in the city of Mosul collapsed in the face of an insurgent uprising, Kurdish Peshmerga battalions, who had recently been converted into ING forces, led the counter-attack alongside US military units. To this day, there are a number of Kurdish battalions of former Peshmerga in the Iraqi Army serving in Northern Iraq.
It is estimated that as of January, 2005 there were 80,000 Peshmerga fighters in Iraqi Kurdistan. A February 2005 The New York Times article mentioned that Massoud Barzani wants to retain the Peshmerga forces. The article estimates their number to be 100,000. A recent CBS News reports places their number at 175,000.
The peshmergas are an active partner in the American-led coalition in Iraq. Many peshmerga are fluent in Arabic, in contrast to foreign coalition troops, and they therefore play an important role in the Sunni triangle of Central Iraq. On the strategic level the peshmergas are ready to fight a guerrilla war in case of a Turkish or an Iranian invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan.
[edit] Current Equipment of the Peshmerga
- Individual Weapons
- Assault Rifle
- AK-47 (Assault Rifle - 7.62 x 39 mm)
- AK-74 (Assault Rifle - 5.45 x 39 mm)
- Heckler & Koch G3 (Assault Rifle - 7.62 × 51 mm)
- Submachine Gun
- Heckler & Koch MP5 (Submachine - 9 × 19 mm)
- Machine Gun
- Sniper Rifle
- SVD Dragunov (Sniper Rifle - 7.62 × 54 mmR)
- M-40A1 (Sniper Rifle - 7.62 × 51 mm)
- Anti-Tank Explosive
- RPG-7 (rocket-propelled grenade launcher - 40 mm)
- Man-Portable Air-Defence System
- Assault Rifle
- Vehicles
-
- Main Battle Tank
- Infantry Fighting Vehicle
- Armoured Personal Carrier
- MT-LB (7.62x54 PKT main gun, 10 passengers)
- BTR-60 (14.5x115 main gun, 7.62x54 coax, 12 passengers)
- Self-Propelled Artillery
- 122mm 2S1 M-1974 (122mm, maximum range with regular shell; 15.3 km, rocket assisted; 21.9 km)
- Towed Artillery
- Mortar
Unlike the other militias, the Peshmerga were not prohibited by the transitional government, the Kurdish army has been formed out of the Peshmerga. They are usually armed with AK-47s and AK-74s, RPKs (light Soviet machine guns) and DShKs (heavy Soviet machine guns). During the American-led invasion the Peshmerga captured the rest of the arms of the Iraqi forces, consisting of more than 2000 armored vehicles (some hundred of them PT-76s and a smaller number of T-55s) and an unknown number of artillery guns. Peshmerga forces do make use of female fighters, making Kurdistan one of only three entities in the Middle East that actively uses female soldiers (others being Israel and Iran).[citation needed]
[edit] Peshmerga Gallery
 Kurdish Peshmerga look back at a car bomb explosion that targeted their convoy near Mosul. Two Peshmerga were killed in the attack. |
 A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter holding his daughter in their village outside of Dahuk. |
 Kurdish Peshmerga contract guards cleaning their weapons, a variation of the AK-47 with folding butt-stock. These Peshmerga’s are employed as bodyguards and drivers for US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) personnel at the USACE compound in Dahuk. |
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[edit] See also
- Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran
- Islamic Movement of Kurdistan
- Komalah
- Kurdistan Workers Party
- Khabat
[edit] External links
- Willing to face Death: A History of Kurdish Military Forces - the Peshmarga - from the Ottoman Empire to Present-Day Iraq by Michael G. Lortz
- Newsweek article speculating on Peshmerga involvement against the Iraqi rebellion
- The New York Times article about the current status of Peshmerga
- Kurds plan to Invade South -"'It doesn't matter if we have to fight the Arabs in our own battalion,' said Gabriel Mohammed, a Kurdish soldier in the Iraqi army... 'Kirkuk will be ours.'
