Mustafa Barzani

Mustafa Barzani (14 March 1903 – 1 March 1979), also known as Mullah Mustafa, was a Kurdish nationalist leader and one of the most prominent political figures in modern Kurdish politics.

In 1946, he was chosen as the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to lead the Kurdish revolt against the Kingdom of Iraq. Barzani was the primary political and military leader of the Kurdish separatist movement until his death in March 1979. He led campaigns of armed insurgency against both the Iraqi and Iranian governments.

Mustafa Barzani was born in 1903 in Barzan, a village in southern Kurdistan. When Barzan was just a few months old, his home village was attacked by the Hamidiye Horsemen, an Ottoman army made up mostly of Kurdish tribal warriors and commanders, and he and his family were deported to Diyarbakır, where he spent a long time in prison. Following an insurrection launched by his tribe, he and his family were imprisoned, when Barzani was only three years old. His father, grandfather, and a brother were later executed by the Ottoman authorities for other insurrections.

At an early age he was sent by his older brother Sheikh Ahmed Barzani to join with about twenty men the revolt of Kurdish chiefs of Az Zibar against the British in Iraq. About a hundred fighters managed to ambush the British diplomat J.H.H. Bill and his company and the group was divided into two. Bill was killed with three others, while two local Kurdish tribesmen were spared. After the revolt resulted in a raid on Akre, the contingent of Barzani returned to their homeland. The British did not let such an attack on their authority go unpunished and destroyed the houses of the Zibari chiefs as well as the houses of the Barzanis. In 1919, as a boy, he participated in Mahmud Barzanji revolts against the British. As an envoy of his brother, he had contact with Sheikh Said.

In 1931 he followed his older brother, the Barzani chieftain (sheikh) Ahmed Barzani, who led an insurrection against Baghdad's attempts to break up tribal power in the Kurdish regions of Iraq. The insurrection began when Sheikh Ahmed had entered into a feud with a neighboring tribal chieftain in Baradost after the latter attacked Sheikh Ahmed for heresy, prompting Iraq to intervene as they had intended to check the Barzani tribe before then. Iraq received help from its British allies, who engaged in aerial warfare against territories in rebellion. The aerial bombardments led to widespread damage and setbacks, leading Sheikh Ahmed to surrender to Turkish forces on the then-contested border with Turkey in June 1932, while Mustafa Barzani and a brother Muhammad Sadiq continued fighting for another year. On the advice of Sheikh Ahmed, Mustafa Barzani surrendered to Iraq. But in 1939 he was involved in the formation of the political party Hewa (Hope), the first Kurdish political party in Iraq.

Mustafa Barzani was kept under surveillance until 1943, when he again broke free from his exile in Sulaymaniyah as Iraq underwent the effects of World War II. Baghdad again utilized tribal rivalries to defeat Barzani, sending him, Sheikh Ahmad, and about three thousand followers fleeing across the border to Iran, entering Oshnavieh in October 1945, where Kurdish nationalists under the guidance of the Soviet Union were establishing a new Kurdish state. Despite differences between Qazi Muhammad and Mustafa Barzani, the arrival of Barzani's forces gave a boost to the ability of the nationalists to assert control over the region.

His political career began in 1939, when he came into contact with the Kurdish nationalist Hiwa Party, which, in turn, was interested in collaborating with Barzani to gain influence over the traditional tribal milieu. In 1943, Barzani, now the official leader of his tribe, rebelled against the Iraqi central government.

In December 1945 the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad was declared by Qazi Muhammad, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran in Mahabad (northwestern Iran) which was under Soviet military control. Barzani was appointed as the Minister of Defense and commander of the Kurdish army in the Republic of Kurdistan. As Iranian forces began to engage the forces of the Republic of Mahabad, Barzani quickly proved his reputation as a capable commander with his forces inflicting defeats on the Iranian divisions, and was one of the few who did not surrender or defect to the advancing Iranian forces.