end of list<\/span><\/section>\nThat leaves potential allies, including Iranian Kurdish opposition groups, uncertain of what comes next. Of the various ethnic groups within Iran, it is the Kurds who are arguably the most organised and militarily experienced. Opposition sentiment towards the government in Tehran is also widespread.<\/p>\n
Iranian Kurdish opposition groups have established political networks, fought rebellions against central government forces, endured repression and splits, and gained combat experience alongside other Kurdish movements from other countries, making them one of the few organised armed challenges to the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n
Kurdish opposition groups have also recently worked to heal divisions between themselves.<\/p>\n
The Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan, a forum allowing many of Iran\u2019s Kurdish opposition groups to coordinate activity against the Iranian state from their strongholds in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq, was announced on February 22, less than a week before US-Israeli strikes began on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.<\/p>\n
The strikes have devastated Iran, but many observers believe that a full defeat of the Iranian government is not possible with just air power. But with the US public largely opposed to the Iran war, and particularly the prospect of US soldiers on the ground following the Iraq war in the 2000s, the possibility of Iranian Kurdish forces leading the charge has been raised by Trump himself.<\/p>\n
Trump said that he would be \u201call for it\u201d in comments made on Thursday,<\/p>\n
Several US media outlets have already reported that US officials have contacted leaders within the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, where many Iranian Kurdish opposition groups are based, to discuss facilitating a ground operation inside Iran.<\/p>\n
Massively outnumbered by Iranian ground forces, estimated at around half a million, Iranian Kurdish opposition groups could likely only muster a maximum of 10,000 fighters, leading analysts to believe that they would be heavily reliant on US or Israeli support, including air strikes and supplying weapons.<\/p>\n
However, given the experience of US alliances and the fickle nature of Trump, who has repeatedly shown himself willing to turn on even close allies, it remains unclear whether Iranian Kurds are prepared to risk the prospect of what Tehran warned on Friday would be widespread reprisals.<\/p>\nIran\u2019s army is estimated to number around half a million, dwarfing the 10,000 or so fighters analysts believe the combined Kurdish groups could muster [File: Vahid Salemi\/AP Photo]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nPast betrayals<\/h2>\n \u201cKurdish political opposition to the Islamic Republic goes back decades,\u201d Kamran Matin, a lecturer in international relations at the University of Sussex, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the early 1990s, they\u2019ve been pushed into northern Iraq, where they\u2019ve established a kind of modus vivendi with the Kurdistan Regional Government [KRG, or Kurdish region of northern Iraq],\u201d Matin, who is Kurdish Iranian, said. \u201cGiven the stakes, any Kurdish offensive on the Islamic Republic would need the KRG\u2019s buy-in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Trump declares victory halfway through and leaves a wounded republic in place, it will likely have both the means and the desire to punish the KRG and, importantly, the people there,\u201d Matin added. \u201cAt the same time, they are not in a position to outright reject Trump\u2019s request.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kurdish experience of past US operations in the Middle East is far from reassuring. In 1991, after President George HW Bush called upon Kurds to rise against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the ensuing rebellion went unsupported, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and years of displacement.<\/p>\n
Later, during the fight against ISIL (ISIS), Syrian Kurds became key US partners, only to see US support falter during the fallout from the 2017 Kurdish independence referendum in Iraq and again in 2019, when partial US withdrawals from northern Syria exposed Kurdish forces to Turkish offensives, forcing mass evacuations and deepening political marginalisation.<\/p>\nFrantic Kurdish refugees struggle for a loaf of bread during a humanitarian aid distribution at the Iraqi-Turkish border, April 5, 1991 [File: Yannis Behrakis\/Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nDespite that, Shukriya Bradost, a Kurdish-Iranian security analyst and researcher at Virginia Tech University, said that there was \u201ccautious hope\u201d among opposition groups that Iranian Kurds would be supported by the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, there is also concern that if Washington reaches an agreement with the remaining elements of the Iranian regime to end the war, Kurdish groups could once again be sidelined and left alone to face a new central government that might continue the same policies of repression,\u201d Bradost said.<\/p>\n
Knock-on effect on Iraq<\/h2>\n The majority of the Iranian Kurdish armed opposition groups are based in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, which operates a regional government largely autonomous from Baghdad. Those groups include the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) and Komala.<\/p>\n
The groups have been exiled there since the 1980s and 1990s.<\/p>\n
Any move in response to Trump\u2019s invitation could have serious consequences for the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, its fragile institutions, and its population of some 5 million people.<\/p>\nA plume of smoke rises near Erbil International Airport in Erbil on March 1, 2026 [File: Shvan Harki\/AFP]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nOn Friday, Iran launched missile and drone strikes targeting the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan.<\/p>\n
That followed comments from\u00a0Ali Akbar Ahmadian, a member of Iran\u2019s Defence Council, who told the semi-official Mehr news agency that Tehran could launch widespread attacks in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, if local authorities failed to crack down on what he described as US and Israeli-backed rebel groups, allegedly plotting to enter Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe KRG has been very clear that it does not want to be part of a war with Iran,\u201d Bradost said. \u201cAs a non-sovereign entity within Iraq, it is one of the weakest actors compared to sovereign states in the region and has therefore been among the first targets of Iranian retaliation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kurdish region of northern Iraq has faced repeated Iranian missile and drone strikes in recent years, Bradost said, with the United States offering little in the way of protection during those attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition, after the 2017 Kurdish independence referendum, Washington ultimately supported the Iraqi central government and Iran-backed Shia militia forces that moved against Kurdish-controlled areas,\u201d Bradost continued. \u201cBecause of this history, despite the KRG\u2019s long and up-and-down relationship with the United States since the 1960s, there is deep caution about becoming involved in any US or Israeli confrontation with Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, despite that caution, as well as the ideological misgivings among many of the leftist Kurdish groups over partnering with the US and Israel, the timing may prove too great an opportunity to turn down.<\/p>\n
The years of war that have followed the October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel and Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza have seen Iran\u2019s network of alliances throughout the region diminish in power. Likewise, the 12-day war of June 2025, allied to the current onslaught against Iran, have arguably made the Islamic Republic as weak as it has ever been.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been fighting against the Islamic Republic for about five decades, with 50 years of repression before that under the Pahlavi regime,\u201d Hemn Seyedi, of the University of Exeter, said. \u201cThe distrust is very real, but this might be the opportunity they\u2019ve been waiting for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mass protests across Iran in January \u2013 when thousands were killed \u2013 had shown the strength of feeling against the state, Seyedi said, and he believes many are likely to support a Kurdish rebellion.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything I\u2019m hearing from the Iranian Kurdish opposition in the [Kurdish region of Iraq] suggests we may see something in the next few days,\u201d Seyedi said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Uncertainty over US and Israeli war aims is slowing the Iranian Kurdish opposition groups urged by President Donald Trump to rise up against the Islamic Republic, Kurdish analysts have told Al Jazeera. From Trump\u2019s call for Iranians to topple their government, to arguments from the United States that it was forced into attacking Iran by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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