Word: barzani
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Muslims but not Arabs, the baggy-trousered, occasionally blue-eyed Aryan Kurds of Iraq make up about one-fourth of the country's population of roughly 10.4 million. The Kurdish guerrilla army, called Pesh Merga (which means "facing death"), is led by a tenacious nationalist, Mulla Mustafa Barzani, 75. It numbers about 40,000 regulars. Iraq can draw on a 90,000-man army that is well equipped and advised by the Soviet Union; Defense Minister Andrei Grechko flew to Baghdad for consultations soon after the negotiations between the government and the Kurds broke...
...Kurds will be the first to feel it," said Dara Towfik, editor of the Baghdad-based Kurdish paper Al Ta'Khee, last week. Besides complaining that they have been shortchanged on development funds, Kurds feel that Baghdad has cheated on the terms of their truce. Kurd Leader Mustafa Barzani worked out an agreement with Baghdad two years ago that brought Kurds into Iraq's Cabinet. But in practice, they have been given hollow jobs. To top that off, eleven people were killed not long ago in an apparent assassination attempt against the Kurd leader. Tempers are high enough...
...that the Kurds were "our blood brothers." Aref freed five rebel leaders from house arrest and conceded two long-standing demands: a measure of local rule for Kurds, and Kurdish-language instruction in their schools. But Aref had a demand of his own. He wanted Rebel Chieftain Mullah Mustafa Barzani to disband his 15,000-man army, called pesh mergas (meaning "those willing to die for the cause"). Skeptically, Barzani refused...
...results were bloodcurdling. "The battalion was completely annihilated," announced a rebel communique. "The aggressors failed in all their attacks. Along the Ruwandiz front, there are more than 1,000 bodies left by the Iraqi army. General Barzani has begged the International Red Cross to propose a one-day truce to remove these decomposing bodies, for the health of the civilian population is endangered." Radio Baghdad told it another way. "The Kurdish rebels," it said, "are collapsing. Sixty rebels were killed in the Barzan area, 75 in Khorman, 80 in Korah and 20 in Koti. The insurgents were so exhausted that...
...Barzani has long enjoyed aid from his Kurdish brethren in Iran. The mountainous frontier is not only impossible to police, but the Teheran government-anxious to avoid open revolt among its own 3,000,000 Kurds-has not strained itself trying. Last month Iraqi troops, opening yet another "offensive" against "Barzani's gang," pursued Kurdish rebels across the ill-defined border into Iran, while Iraqi MIG jets strafed Kurds in villages on the Iranian side. Iran charged that a 150-man Iraqi force shelled the Iranian village of Tang-e-Hammam, executed two captured Iranian gendarmes, and hacked their...