Who Are the Kurds?

It is not the 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 of displaced Kurds trekked north to reclaim their ancestral lands -- only to be attacked by Saddam and forced to flee again.

A People Apart

The Kurds' ethnic roots reach back thousands of years to the dawn of Mesopotamia. They were not actually called Kurds until the 7th century, when most of them converted to Islam. Numbering between 14 million and 28 million, most Kurds are devout Sunni Muslims who speak a western Iranian language related to Farsi. Kurdistan has no official borders, but stretches from the Zagros Mountains in Iran through parts of Iraq, Syria and eastern Turkey. Most Kurds today are farmers who live in small villages noted for their competitive clan structure and unruliness. They have at times even earned a reputation for brutality. The Turks provoked some Kurdish tribes to join in the massacre of Armenians near the end of the 19th century. Perhaps the most famous Kurd in history was Saladin, the legendary military leader who battled Richard the Lionheart and proved the wiliest and most effective defender of Islam against the invading Crusaders.

Years of Defeat

1920 Before World War I, the Kurds were split between the Ottoman and Persian empires. In the postwar Treaty of Sevres, the colonial powers promised to create a unified independent Kurdish homeland, but the treaty was never ratified.

1925 Kurds rose up against the government in Turkey, but their revolt was soon crushed.

1946 A Soviet-backed Kurdish republic called Mahabad was formed in Iran. When the Soviets withdrew, leaving the Kurds to defend themselves, the republic was overthrown by Iranian troops.

1961 Under the leadership of Mustafa Barzani, organized armed resistance began against Iraqi rule.

1970 Iraq's Baath Party attempted to pacify rebellious Kurds with an offer of autonomy, but the agreement broke down.

1974-75 The Kurds resumed their fight, this time with the backing of the Shah of Iran. But they were abandoned when the Shah and Saddam Hussein cut a deal. Iran agreed to halt aid to the Kurds, and in exchange Iraq agreed to share sovereignty of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which provides access to the Persian Gulf.

1988 Saddam avenged Kurdish support of Iran in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. His army used poison gas against the town of Halabja, killing 5,000 Kurds, and destroyed thousands of villages.

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CREDIT: [TMFONT 1 d #666666 d {Source: The Kurdish Library, World Factbook}]CAPTION: Where They Live

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