As the war against Iran enters its third week, the White House says ground forces are “not part of the plan.” Veteran Kurdish fighters told USA TODAY they disagree.
Trump says Iran targets oil tanker, Iran war is ‘in very good shape’
President Donald Trump said the United States is in “very good shape” as attacks on oil tankers continue in the Middle East.
On a Kurdish base near the border with Iran – Military boots could soon cross the land into the Islamic Republic of Iran from this terrain of fertile valleys, deep canyons and ancient Mesopotamian trade routes beneath the mountainous border that separates Iraq and Iran.
It may not be an American thing.
As the US-Israel war against Iran enters its third week, the White House says ground operations are “not part of the plan at this time.” President Donald Trump has reportedly claimed that Iran is “surrendering,” but there have been no such signs from the Iranian government. Israeli and U.S. officials say the war is aimed at crippling Iran’s long-range ballistic missile arsenal and nuclear program while cornering key figures in Iran’s clerical regime.
Still, as the war continues on an uncertain trajectory, exiled Iranian Kurdish opposition leaders and fighters (Peshmerga, meaning “those facing death” in English) told USA TODAY they are ready to launch an invasion plan. All they are waiting for, they say, is U.S. military air cover to begin the operation.
“When we cross the border, the United States should secure the sky and protect us from the air,” Rebaz Sharifi, commander of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), an Iranian Kurdish separatist group based in northern Iraq, said in an interview on March 11. “We don’t need and don’t expect people to take to the streets,” he said, referring to President Trump’s Feb. 28 statement at the time of his request. Once the bombing campaign begins, the Iranians will “take over your government. It’s yours.” Israeli leaders have made similar comments.
USA TODAY interviewed Sharifi at a PAK base north of Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. The base resembled a barracks more than an operational military facility. It is built along the banks of the Great Zab River, which meanders through northeastern Iraq. Some specific details about the facility have not been made public at the request of Kurdish military commanders.
Iranian drones: cheap, fast and deadly
Since the outbreak of the war, Iranian-backed militias in Iran and Iraq have repeatedly fired drones and missiles at bases like this one, as well as the U.S. consulate in Erbil and the headquarters of the U.S.-led Global Coalition to Defeat Islamic State at Erbil International Airport. Many are intercepted by air defense systems.
But not all.
Shortly before a USA TODAY reporter arrived at the PAK base, an Iranian drone came down while encircling farmland. There was no explosion. Nearby, fighter jets were showing off their drone strikes. They explained how the attack was carried out by two types of Iranian-made “Shahed” drones. These are known as “kamikaze” drones because they are cheap to produce, fast, are not designed to fly back, and are difficult to stop.
When USA TODAY visited another Kurdish military base associated with the Komala Party (KPIK) in Iranian Kurdistan on March 12, a reporter was abruptly ordered to evacuate by the group’s commander due to a possible drone attack. The KPIK base is located in a rocky mountainous region near the Iranian border. The fighter was wearing camouflage clothing that blended into the sand-colored background. The base could not be reached without climbing a steep slope.
At one point during the climb, about 20 Peshmerga fighters stood on either side of the narrow path, chanting slogans such as “Women, Life, Freedom” and “Long Live Kurdistan’s Resistance.”
The female and male combatants range in age from their late teens to those in their 50s and 60s.
“We will be able to return to Iran soon,” said one of the fighters, who did not give his name.
Kurds: repression, shifting alliances, betrayal
Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East, with an estimated population of 36 million to 45 million people worldwide, according to the Kurdish Institute in Paris, an independent cultural and research center. However, they do not have a single country to call their own, and are scattered mainly in western Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, and Turkey.
For more than a century, the Kurds have endured oppression, shifting alliances and repeated betrayals by Israel, the United States and others. They are routinely pursued by Iran and Türkiye, which consider some Kurdish militias to be terrorist organizations. Some Kurdish groups have been fighting a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.
In the 1970s, then allies the United States and Iran armed Iraqi Kurdish rebels in an effort to weaken the Iraqi government in Baghdad. However, after the Shah of Iran secured territorial rights from Iraq in 1975, he abruptly cut off aid to the Kurds with the approval of the United States. Four years later, the Iranian monarch was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This pattern was repeated in 1991 when the United States called on Kurdish Iraqis to rise up against Saddam Hussein. A rebellion ensued. Washington refused to intervene as the regime violently repressed them.
“We have no friends but the mountains” is a well-worn Kurdish proverb.
For now, it’s not particularly clear whether they have any friends in the US president.
President Trump has made contradictory statements about supporting Kurdish rebels as proxy ground forces in the war against Iran, including potentially providing arms or air support to them as they attempt to launch an invasion. Kurds are one of Iran’s largest ethnic minorities. According to the London think tank Chatham House, there are an estimated 7 million to 15 million Kurds in Iran (about 8 to 17 percent of Iran’s total population).
On March 5, President Trump responded to a reporter’s question about the possibility of Iranian Kurdish forces launching attacks against Iran from bases in Iraqi Kurdistan, saying, “I think it’s great that they want to do that. I’m all for it.” Two days later, he reversed course, saying, “The war is complicated enough without involving the Kurds.”
Arming the Kurds: what it means
The Peshmerga do not have a single universally agreed upon number of fighters, as the military is divided into different political groups and chains of command. British government estimates put the total number of personnel at around 150,000, but it is unclear how many of them are active duty soldiers.
Seth Franzman is a veteran journalist and Middle East analyst based in Israel and a part-time fellow at the Washington-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He has covered Kurdish issues for more than 10 years. He said Kurdish Iranian rebel fighters mainly carry small arms, including AK-47 rifles.
He said that even if the U.S. military decided to provide assistance, it was unclear what kind of weapons and logistics would be available quickly. That’s because training and getting weapons in the hands takes time, and U.S. soldiers may need to be involved in an “advise and support” capacity. When the United States supported and armed Syria’s Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Forces to defeat the Islamic State militant group, it took years for that defeat to become a reality, he said.
On March 13, U.S. officials told USA TODAY that the United States is strengthening its presence in the Middle East by sending an additional 2,500 Marines amid an increase in attacks by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Alaghushi said in a recent interview with NBC News that Iran is preparing for the deployment of US ground forces. “We are waiting for them,” Araghchi said, adding: “We are confident that we will be able to confront them, but if we do, it will be a big disaster for them.”
He did not mention Iranian Kurdish fighters.
President Trump’s confusing message in Kurdish
Despite Kurdish fighters receiving mixed messages from the Trump administration, a new coalition of exiled Iranian Kurdish groups, including the PAK, colluded to exploit the changing balance of power in Iran and the regime’s vulnerabilities ahead of and after military action against Iran by Israel and the United States.
Khalid Azizi, a spokesman for the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), which is part of this coalition, traveled to Washington last week to secure meetings with key Trump administration officials, seek to shore up aid to the Kurds and, ideally, procure U.S. military drones to protect them from Iran.
“We received a message from President Trump that he supports the Kurdish case, that he supports the Kurds, that he supports the establishment of democracy in Iran, that he wants regime change or some kind of change within Iran so that the Iranian people can live a better life. Things like that,” Azizi said. He himself was injured in 2018 when an Iranian missile struck the PDKI headquarters in Koya, southeast of Erbil.
Azizi said the coalition had “some contacts” with U.S. officials “underground” but did not elaborate on the term. He said he had no information about reports that the CIA was working to arm Kurdish forces in order to incite a popular uprising in Iran. He noted that Kurdish groups have been in contact with U.S. officials for years, but the ongoing war in Iran has created uncertainty in the relationship.
The CIA did not respond to requests for comment.
“President Trump has been very reserved,” Azizi said. “We have not received a clear message.” It is unclear whether Mr. Azizi was able to meet with Trump administration officials while in Washington.
Sharifi, the PAK military commander, said that Peshmerga fighters like him have “distanced themselves” from many aspects of daily life “in order to achieve the rights of the people and the freedom of the state.”
He said the Kurds do not need a popular uprising in Iran. What they need, he said, is for the United States and Israel to “open a passage for us so we can get into Iranian territory. Once that happens, they will understand what we can do.”
He said the Kurds have confidence in Trump, seeing him as a “strong and capable man who knows very well how to manage wars in the Middle East.” He said no previous U.S. president could have done anything like this.
Younes Mohammad reported from the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
Kim Hjelmgaard is an investigative journalist who covers global news from living rooms to war zones for USA TODAY. He is based in London.
Contributor: Cybele Mayes-Osterman in Washington.
