analysis
There are many indications that Israel and the USA are motivating Kurdish-Iranian resistance groups to attack. While Israel has long maintained contacts with the Kurds, US President Trump has a serious credibility problem.
Mar 5, 2026, 5:54 amMar 5, 2026, 7:44 am
Kurt Pelda, Tel Aviv / ch media
Israeli fighter jets are increasingly flying attacks in the Kurdish settlement areas in western Iran in order to put pressure on the revolutionary guards on the border with neighboring Iraq. At the same time, US President Trump spoke on the phone with two Kurdish leaders of the autonomous region of Kurdistan in Iraq, Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani.
Kurdish fighters in Iraq (archive photo).Image: keystone
The aim was probably to convince the Iraqi Kurds to support an offensive by the Iranian Kurds from Iraqi territory. There are now increasing signals that there could be an offensive by Kurdish irregulars.
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In Tehran, the mullahs’ regime and the previously all-powerful Revolutionary Guard have weakened, but the government has neither collapsed nor has there been a popular uprising. There was also no coup by parts of the security forces. Now Israel and the USA have a problem because they cannot or do not want to risk a ground war.
Seen in this light, it is not surprising that people now want to motivate the Kurds to do this. Such an attack could probably only come from the territory of the autonomous region of Kurdistan in Iraq, which directly borders the Kurdish settlement areas in Iran.
Iranian drones in Kurdistan
However, Iran and Iraq, which includes the autonomous region of Kurdistan, reached an agreement in 2023 to disarm Iranian Kurdish groups in Iraq. However, this treaty was never fully implemented.
According to the AFP agency, the Iraqi government, which has good relations with Tehran, announced that Iraqi Prime Minister al-Sudani had ordered the border with Iran to be sealed so that there would be no attacks by Kurdish groups. However, it is unclear how much Baghdad still has to report in Kurdish northern Iraq in the current situation.
To forestall such attacks, the Iranians have also carried out drone strikes on targets in northern Iraq, including a rebel base east of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Iranian resistance group Party of Freedom of Kurdistan (PAK) was affected, with a Peshmerga, as the Kurdish fighters call themselves, killed.
An air defense system intercepts an Iranian drone near Erbil.Image: keystone
The best-known Iranian-Kurdish rebel formation is the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), which is close to the political party of the same name run by Masoud Barzani’s clan. Because it has existed since 1945, it has been fighting against the central government in Tehran long before the mullahs came to power in 1979.
The founder of the KDPI became president of the short-lived Republic of Kurdistan, which was backed by the Soviet Union, after World War II. The group later also fought against the troops of the Shah of Persia, whose son Reza Pahlavi is now in the USA conspiring against the regime in Tehran. The fact that the resistance struggle of the Iranian Kurds was not only directed against the mullahs, but also against the Shah, is one reason why the Iranian Kurds are not particularly enthusiastic about the possible return of the Shah dynasty to Tehran.
The prospect of Reza Pahlavi doesn’t really excite the Kurds.Image: keystone
The long 500 kilometers to Tehran
It was already clear before the Israeli-American attack that something was happening among the Iranian Kurds in Iraqi Kurdish exile. On February 22, five Kurdish-Iranian fighting groups formed an alliance to overthrow the Iranian government and realize Kurdish self-determination. In addition to the KDPI and the PAK, this coalition also includes the Iranian branch of the Turkish Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK. Although this has dissolved on paper, it still maintains bases in northern Iraq and, via another branch, in Syria.
I personally met Peshmerga from the KDPI and the PKK offshoot PJAK – including numerous women – after they helped repel an attack by the terrorist group Islamic State on the autonomous region of Kurdistan in 2014. At this point, the Kurdish-Iranian groups stationed in northern Iraq came to the aid of the Iraqi Kurds against ISIS. The Americans supported these fighters primarily from the air. So there have long been contacts between the Peshmerga of various formations on the one hand and the Americans and Western allies on the other. Current arms deliveries from Americans or Israelis would therefore not be a surprise.
Image: thekurdishproject.org
But what would be the chances of success of an attack from northern Iraq? No Kurdish group would claim to want to march the almost 500 kilometers from the Iraqi-Iranian border to Tehran. That would seem illusory. The Kurds are primarily concerned with better living conditions for their people in their settlement areas in western Iran. If the alliance of the five resistance groups actually attacks, it could at best liberate part of western Iran under an American-Israeli air umbrella and thus further weaken the regime.
At the moment, the alliance probably has a few thousand Peshmerga, which shows that the combat effectiveness of these groups is limited. The PJAK (Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan) appears to be the strongest militarily, and could possibly count on support from PKK supporters in Syria and Turkey. If mobilized, all of these groups could probably grow to a force of well over 10,000 Peshmerga. But there are significant risks.
Who should believe Trump?
On the one hand, the Kurds, who are spread across the states of Türkiye, Iran, Iraq and Syria, have historically never united for their cause. On the other hand, few Kurds have trust in Trump, because just a few weeks ago he shamefully abandoned and betrayed the Syrian PKK branch in the fight against an offensive by Syrian government troops.
Even though the Barzani clan in northern Iraq in particular has long been in competition with the left-wing PKK and its branches in Syria and Iran, Trump’s erratic foreign policy and the arrogant behavior of his special envoy Tom Barack have certainly not been overlooked.
One of Trump’s defining characteristics is to pressure, alienate, and abandon his allies. Already in 2017, in his first term in office, Trump failed to support the referendum on Kurdistan’s independence from Iraq. After Iraqi and Syrian Peshmerga bore the brunt of the fight against IS, many Kurds saw it as a betrayal.
Trump would now have to make very big concessions to the Kurds so that they would get involved in the fight against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. And even if he were to support a Kurdish state in northern Iraq this time, who would believe him? Trump says this today and that tomorrow and doesn’t want to remember the promises of the day before yesterday. (aargauerzeitung.ch)