Word: peshmerga
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Dates: during 1991-1991
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...Kurds fought back bravely. But there was a stylized, almost medieval < ferocity to their resistance. The peshmerga were dressed in turbans and baggy khaki trousers. Along with their AK-47s, SAMs and submachine guns, they carried a traditional dagger stuck into their sashes. "I am very happy," said one peshmerga. He pointed toward the battle zone to indicate the source of his joy: "War." Possessed of an incredible sense of honor, the peshmerga buried all the Iraqi soldiers they killed with full military honors. Explained Idriss Makmoud, a peshmerga commander: "That is the honorable way." Attempting to retake Kirkuk...
...evening the sun is boiling red, but the wind is cool. The men become silent. It is the moment of peace before the carnage, and the peshmerga savor these remaining minutes. In only a few hours, many of them will be dead or wounded. But they grin fiercely, and one fighter with mustaches that stretch inches from either side of his face barks, "I will use these to strangle Saddam...
...lookout on the hill yells, "Helicopters! Helicopters!" There are seven of them, all firing rockets. There is incoming artillery fire: Boom- whistle-bang-boom-whistle-bang-boom-whistle-bang. What follows is a mad melee of men scattering like quicksilver into gullies, ditches, crevices, behind hillocks, into hollows. The peshmerga are helpless before these gunships, but it is not for want of trying. They tear open with everything they have: antiaircraft guns, rockets, small arms, machine guns, even mortars. But their fire is confused and disorganized. The "damnation birds" keep wheeling around and coming back, untouchable...
...night mercifully hides the dusty smoke of artillery. Three 175-mm field guns are outlined against the full-moon sky with piles of shells beside them and peshmerga pulling the lanyards. The subsequent roar deafens the ears with the sound of a thousand church bells ringing. Then a moment of magic silence, and somewhere a night bird's lilting song brings out the stars. God knows...
...first time Kurdish hopes for a homeland have ended in disaster. Their guerrillas call themselves peshmerga -- those who face death -- and over the years many have perished in aborted attempts to carve out a homeland of their own from the lands of rulers who despise them. In Iraq Saddam Hussein has for years tried to eliminate them. Since 1975 four of every five Kurdish villages have been leveled; many of their residents have been moved to resettlement towns and detention camps in the southern deserts. When the U.S.-led coalition drove the Iraqi army from Kuwait, hundreds of thousands...