Sitting on the second story of a café in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, I looked out over the beautiful city the Kurds have built and maintained despite decades of war. It was clear that religious freedom and racial tolerance had created safety and prosperity, while attempts by Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban to establish theocracies, or ISIS to create a caliphate, had only brought death, repression, poverty, and suffering.
“During the war with ISIS, if they captured our village, they would just behead us,” said 38-year-old Dlo, country director of Free the Oppressed, DBA Free Burma Rangers in Iraq and Kurdistan. “Oh, they would behead us for sure. Even though we were Kurds, ISIS would still call us infidels. Although we were Muslim, doing our prayers, practicing Islam. They were brainwashed.”
The Kurds are a distinct ethnic group of 30–40 million people spread across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, making them one of the world’s largest stateless nations. Predominantly Sunni Muslim but generally more secular and moderate than their neighbors, they speak Kurdish, an Indo-European language related to Persian. Over the past decades, Kurdish forces have allied with the United States in two major wars, helping to overthrow Saddam Hussein in 2003 and playing a frontline role in the campaign to defeat ISIS from 2014 to 2019.
When ISIS swept through Iraq, the Iraqi army collapsed, but the Peshmerga (Kurdish military forces) held the line. With U.S. air support, weapons, training, and embedded advisors, they became decisive American allies in the fight. Kurdish society has long given women significant roles, including in the military, and by 2014 at least 600 women were serving in the Peshmerga. This progressive stance on women’s rights stands in stark contrast to the extremist groups they fought against.
During the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Kurdish Peshmerga forces fought alongside American troops, with the CIA and U.S. special forces coordinating joint operations that helped topple Saddam Hussein’s regime. Saddam’s persecution of the Kurds reached genocidal proportions during the 1988 Anfal campaign, when between 50,000 and 182,000 Kurds were killed through chemical attacks, mass executions, and systematic village destruction. The infamous chemical attack on Halabja alone killed at least 5,000 civilians instantly.
Dlo grew up during those dark years and experienced firsthand the violence and destruction under Saddam’s rule. An estimated 1.5 to 2 million Kurds fled to the mountains or across the borders into Turkey and Iran. Dlo’s family was among them, escaping to Iran after their village was attacked.
“I remember when we were in Iran, my parents were telling me the story. We had been refugees there. I was about three or four. We stayed for maybe two or three weeks, or a month. Then they decided to go back home. But when we came back, everything was gone—windows broken, everything taken, even the furniture. Then we had to start a new life again.”
This cycle of repeated displacement, Dlo said, was the common Kurdish experience: “Again and again, come back, start a new life. You get tired of this, but you keep going.”
When ISIS launched its invasion of Iraq in 2014, capturing Mosul and advancing to within 30 miles of Erbil, the Iraqi army largely collapsed. The Kurdish Peshmerga, however, stood firm. U.S. forces provided air support, weapons, equipment, training, and embedded advisors.
From 2014 to 2017, approximately 1,300 to 1,466 Peshmerga fighters were killed fighting ISIS, with around 8,000 to 8,610 wounded. These casualties came as the Peshmerga defended a frontline stretching over 1,000 kilometers against ISIS, a sacrifice that freed more than 50,000 square kilometers from ISIS control.
ISIS specifically targeted Kurdish communities and carried out genocide against the Yazidis, a peaceful Kurdish-speaking religious minority with no significant military force of their own. Labeled as infidels, Yazidis relied on Kurdish Peshmerga for protection of their ancestral homeland in the Sinjar area.
The Kurdish forces from Syria, the YPG (People’s Protection Units) along with PKK fighters from Turkey, opened a humanitarian corridor that saved tens of thousands of Yazidis. Later, some Yazidi militias coordinated with the Peshmerga, and all were supported by US forces.
Dlo recalled how U.S. forces came to train the Peshmerga and described how he later joined the Free Burma Rangers, serving as a combat medic and helping evacuate civilians on the front lines. Because of this shared history of fighting extremism together, most Kurds remain strongly pro-American.
However, the relationship was severely damaged in October 2019, when US forces withdrew from northeastern Syria, allowing Turkey, a NATO ally, to launch a military operation against Syrian Kurdish forces.
The U.S. relationship with the various Kurdish entities across Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, and their relationships with each other, is complex. The Iraqi Peshmerga are loyal to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, officially recognized and allied with the U.S. The PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) is a Turkey-based militant organization that has fought the Turkish state for over four decades and is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey and the United States.
The YPG and SDF are Syrian Kurdish forces who became America’s main partner against ISIS, but Turkey views them as affiliates of the PKK. This created a contradictory situation in which the U.S. supported the YPG in the fight against ISIS while Turkey simultaneously attacked them. Ankara also backs Islamist factions in Syria that target Kurds and other minorities. Today, the Kurdish autonomous zone in Syria shelters Christians, Yazidis, Alawites, and others fleeing atrocities committed by extremist groups aligned with al-Jolani’s HTS government.
These dynamics have fueled friction between the Trump administration and Turkey, leading many U.S. Christians and conservatives to question why Ankara, with its support for Islamists and close ties to Russia, is still permitted to remain in NATO.
In 1991, the United States and its coalition partners created a no-fly zone north of the 36th parallel to protect the Kurds from Saddam Hussein’s military. This protection allowed the Kurds to establish self-governance and laid the groundwork for autonomy.
When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 and toppled Saddam, Kurds participated in drafting Iraq’s new constitution, which in 2005 formally recognized the Kurdistan Region as an autonomous federal entity. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was established with its own parliament, president, laws, Peshmerga military forces, and even border and visa authority. Covering roughly 40,000 square kilometers, it includes the provinces of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Dohuk, and Halabja.
Without U.S. intervention, first through the no-fly zone and later the overthrow of Saddam—Kurdish autonomy would not have been possible. This is why most Iraqi Kurds remain strongly pro-American and see the U.S. as the guarantor of their freedom and security.
Following the fall of Saddam, the three provinces under KRG control were the only ones in Iraq classified as “secure” by the U.S. government. According to the KRG, not a single coalition soldier was killed nor a single foreigner kidnapped in areas it administered after 2003. Today, Erbil is the wealthiest and safest city in Iraq, and among the most stable in the region.
While many Iraqis face frequent shortages, the average person in Erbil earns close to the national average and enjoys uninterrupted electricity, water, cellular service, and Wi-Fi. Kurdistan as a whole is generally safe, making it the most secure region in the country. As a result, both foreign and domestic investment are flowing in, and the entire area resembles a massive construction site, with new apartments and malls constantly being built.
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