Peshmerga

Overview

The Peshmerga are the Kurds’ traditional armed force and the principal military forces associated with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq. They defend the Kurdistan Region, have fought Iraqi government forces and the Islamic State, and have operated alongside Iraqi and international coalition forces. Their history joins a record of costly combat and civilian rescue with a persistent institutional problem: forces identified as Peshmerga have often answered to rival Kurdish parties rather than a single government chain of command.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) built separate military and security organizations. PUK-linked Force 70 and KDP-linked Force 80 became the largest party-aligned Peshmerga formations. The parties also retained their own police, Asayish internal security, and intelligence services. The KRG’s September 2026 announcement of completed military unification created First and Second regional commands, but their leadership followed the former party structure. Formal reorganization therefore did not, by itself, establish how far operational command and party control had changed.

Peshmerga fought across the Nineveh Plains, around Mosul and Kirkuk, and at Sinjar during the war against the Islamic State. Their resistance helped defend Kurdish population centers and supported the coalition campaign. Their withdrawal when the Islamic State invaded Sinjar in 2014 also left Yazidis exposed to mass killing, abduction, and flight. Later Peshmerga operations, aided by United States airstrikes, helped break the siege of Mount Sinjar and retake the area. Both episodes are central to the force’s record.

Founding and ideology

Peshmerga forces preceded the modern KRG and served Kurdish political movements through successive conflicts with Baghdad. Mustafa Barzani was a prominent Peshmerga leader during the Kurdish struggle for autonomy. In 1975, Iraqi forces equipped with Soviet tanks and advanced weapons overran Peshmerga fighters who were short of ammunition. That defeat illustrated the disparity in heavy arms between Kurdish forces and the Iraqi state, a recurring concern in later debates over equipment and outside military support.

After the KRG formed in 1992, the Peshmerga began evolving toward a unified regional armed force. The project developed amid competition between the KDP and PUK, whose territorial bases, command structures, and security organizations remained distinct. The KDP’s center of power lay around Erbil and Duhok; the PUK’s lay around Sulaymaniyah. Their armed rivalry during the 1990s entrenched separate command systems even as KRG institutions took shape. Peshmerga service consequently represented both the defense of Kurdish self-government and membership in forces with differing party loyalties.

The Peshmerga are a regional military institution, not a single ideological party. Kurdish self-government and defense of the Kurdistan Region provide their common purpose, while KDP and PUK organization has shaped recruitment, deployment, and command. The distinction matters when assessing the force’s actions: units under the KRG Ministry of Peshmerga, units directly controlled by party leaders, and security forces nominally placed under other regional ministries have not always operated as one organization.

History

The Islamic State’s 2014 advance transformed the Peshmerga’s military role. Following the Fall of Mosul, Iraqi government forces abandoned Kirkuk and Peshmerga entered and defended the city. Islamic State forces also attacked KDP Peshmerga at Tel Kaef as the party entered the fighting. Around Kirkuk, PUK forces fought near Hamrin Lake and Tuz Khormatu while the PUK allowed Iraqi aircraft to use the Kirkuk air base. The anti-Islamic State campaign brought together forces with competing interests, including the Iraqi army, Kurdish parties, local fighters, and militias. Their common enemy did not remove those divisions.

Sinjar became the force’s most consequential failure and later a major site of recovery operations. KDP Peshmerga had controlled the area before the Islamic State’s August 2014 invasion. Thousands withdrew without resistance as the attackers advanced, leaving Yazidi residents exposed. Fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party established an escape corridor and a defensive line in the mountains for fleeing Yazidis. Yazidi dissatisfaction with the withdrawal subsequently helped the Kurdistan Workers’ Party establish a position in Sinjar. The KDP also assembled hundreds of Yazidis into a Peshmerga coalition commanded by Qasim Shesho.

Peshmerga and Kurdistan Workers’ Party forces cooperated in efforts to recapture territory around Sinjar in November 2014. In mid-December, Peshmerga aided by United States airstrikes broke the Islamic State’s siege of Mount Sinjar and opened an escape route. International coalition, Iraqi army, Peshmerga, and Yazidi forces cleared Islamic State forces from Sinjar by November 2015; the Yazidi Sinjar Resistance Units participated in the liberation. These later operations helped rescue survivors and regain territory, while the initial withdrawal remained a decisive part of the history of the Yazidi genocide.

The Peshmerga also operated beyond Iraq’s borders. At the end of October 2014, units crossed Turkey to reinforce the People’s Defense Units at Kobani. Turkey continued permitting their passage in March 2015. Kobani’s defense improved prospects for cooperation among Syrian Kurdish fighters, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, and Peshmerga in Iraq, although their political affiliations differed. At home, Kurdish fighters also assisted Turkmen militias beyond their defensive positions after the Bashir massacre.

The 2017 Kurdistan Region independence referendum led to another turning point. During Baghdad’s October operation, Peshmerga withdrew from Kirkuk without a major fight. PUK leaders reached an agreement with Baghdad under Iranian auspices after a visit by Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force. The agreement provided for PUK Peshmerga to leave Kirkuk and other areas at issue between the KRG and Iraq’s central government. Iraqi troops and Popular Mobilization Forces, including formations under Iranian patronage, entered after the withdrawal. KDP commanders accused PUK commanders of betrayal. The episode exposed how party command could determine the outcome of a military crisis involving forces collectively called Peshmerga.

Structure and leadership

One assessment counted 33,000 Peshmerga in ten Regional Guard Brigades under the KRG Ministry of Peshmerga, while at least 70,000 others remained in smaller formations directly controlled by KDP and PUK leaders. The KRG Ministry of Interior’s Zerevany included another approximately 30,000 personnel in a paramilitary police force. Regional Guard Brigades could draw on artillery, tanks, personnel carriers, and antitank weapons captured from Saddam Hussein’s forces. Such counts describe different organizational categories and periods, rather than a single verified total for the force.

Party control persisted after the main battles against the Islamic State. In 2019 and 2020, the KDP and PUK separately controlled additional Peshmerga units and maintained independent security apparatuses, including Asayish and intelligence services. Their police and internal security forces were nominally connected to KRG institutions without losing their separate party leadership. PUK figures Jaafar Sheikh Mustafa and Kosrat Rasul Ali controlled substantial party-affiliated Peshmerga forces in Sulaymaniyah. The KDP deployed its own Peshmerga at the Habur Gate crossing between Iraq and Turkey. Force 70 remained associated with the PUK and Force 80 with the KDP.

Women have served alongside Peshmerga since the 1970s. The PUK formed the first all-female unit in 1996; it later grew beyond 500 members, with some women reaching the rank of colonel. Before the war against the Islamic State, female personnel chiefly performed border security, protection of women’s shelters, medical work, and communications. The expanding war in 2014 opened frontline combat roles. Women helped secure Kirkuk in 2016 and reclaim the Bai Hassan oil production facilities. Nearly 1,000 women in the Zeravani received two months of training from Italian coalition personnel outside Erbil that year.

Yazidi women also entered Peshmerga formations after the assault on Sinjar. In January 2015, the KRG authorized survivor Khatoon Khider to form an all-female Yazidi battalion, which she commanded as the Force of the Sun Ladies Brigade. In 2016, 127 Yazidi Kurdish women completed a 45-day basic training course at a Peshmerga Tiger base in the Zakho district. Their service broadened women’s participation in combat, although their place in the force after the main campaign against the Islamic State remained uncertain.

Funding and sponsors

The KRG has financed and administered Peshmerga forces, while the United States and its coalition partners supplied training, equipment, and operating support during the campaign against the Islamic State. A coalition Kurdistan Training Coordination Centre began a roughly 300-person mission in January 2015. Between then and April 2016, it graduated nine groups of approximately 500 Peshmerga each. Military aid could fly directly into the KRG, but Iraq’s Ministry of Defence approved the aircraft manifests. The arrangement reflected both practical cooperation with Kurdish forces and Baghdad’s continuing role in authorizing arms deliveries.

The United States and KRG agreed to a memorandum supporting the Peshmerga in 2016. A separate United States arrangement provided roughly $415 million toward Peshmerga operating costs during their participation in the Battle of Mosul (2016–2017). Training, equipment, and coalition air support connected the force to Operation Inherent Resolve. The United States renewed support in 2022 with a focus on operations against the Islamic State and reform of the Peshmerga Ministry. Support from Italy and other coalition members also developed specialized training, including for women in the Zeravani.

Financing remained a point of dispute between the KRG and Baghdad. At the time of the 2026 unification announcement, an Iraqi soldier received twice a Peshmerga member’s pay. KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani called on Iraq’s federal government to provide Peshmerga personnel with salaries and financial entitlements equal to those of Iraqi Army personnel. A United States budget request reported in spring 2026 proposed reducing direct Peshmerga support from $61 million to zero. That proposal concerned future funding; it did not erase the training and operating support provided during earlier campaigns.

Attacks and operations

Peshmerga helped secure initial gains in the Nineveh Plains before Iraqi federal forces attacked Mosul’s suburbs in 2016. Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga led the wider Mosul campaign with support from Shiite militias, Sunni tribesmen, and aircraft of the American-led coalition. By June 2016, the KRG had recorded 1,466 Peshmerga killed, 8,610 wounded, and 62 missing in the war against the Islamic State. In 2019, more than 60 Peshmerga taken hostage during the fighting remained missing. The figures show the scale of the force’s losses as its members defended the Kurdistan Region and joined operations elsewhere in Iraq.

The Islamic State used conventional attacks, explosives, and chemical munitions against Peshmerga positions. In February 2016, Duhok’s Azadi hospital reported treating nine fighters exposed to chlorine mortar shells fired by Islamic State operatives near Sinjar. Canadian soldiers visiting a Peshmerga front line came under Islamic State fire in January 2015 and returned fire without casualties. Peshmerga continued to face Islamic State cells after the group lost its major territorial holdings. Attacks around Kirkuk in April and May 2021 struck Iraqi police, army personnel, Tribal Mobilization fighters, and Peshmerga.

In late 2021, Islamic State attacks again demonstrated the risk along gaps between Kurdish and federal positions. Gunfire at two Peshmerga posts southwest of Erbil on December 2 killed six fighters and wounded five; seven other Peshmerga died in subsequent fighting. An attack on a post in northern Kirkuk Province on December 5 killed an officer and three fighters. Islamic State forces seized Lahiban near Kirkuk during December 4–6, but a Peshmerga force and an Iraqi army special unit retook it the following day. The KRG and Iraqi Army also formed an 8,000-fighter joint force to protect areas between Sulaymaniyah and Diyala provinces.

Combat operations brought Peshmerga authority over civilians and displaced communities under scrutiny. Peshmerga and Popular Mobilization forces prevented some displaced Sunni Arabs, Turkmen, and others from returning home after areas were freed from the Islamic State. Peshmerga, Iraqi security forces, and Popular Mobilization Forces checkpoints restricted travel on the Duhok–Sinjar road in 2018. Yazidi political representatives reported religiously based restrictions at Peshmerga-controlled checkpoints during journeys from Baghdad to their communities. These restrictions affected people already uprooted by war and form part of the record alongside the force’s battlefield service.

Designations and international status

The Peshmerga serve as armed forces of the KRG within Iraq’s federal system. The Iraqi constitution permits the KRG to maintain internal security forces, while relations with Baghdad over command, territory, salaries, and military aid have remained contentious. Their participation in coalition operations made them a major partner in the fight against the Islamic State, but it did not settle whether every party-controlled formation operated under effective regional government command.

Human rights reporting has examined detention practices, disappearances, blocked returns, and the conduct of party-controlled security forces. In 2018, a KRG committee publicly cleared Peshmerga forces after reviewing abuse reports involving displaced people; human rights organizations challenged the credibility of those investigations. The 2019 Iraq human rights report again recorded frequent reports of disappearances involving several Iraqi and Kurdish security bodies, including Peshmerga and Asayish. Reports concerning 2024 described abuse involving additional Asayish, Peshmerga, and police forces controlled by the PUK and KDP, with inconsistent accountability. These reports require scrutiny of specific conduct and command responsibility; they do not establish that every Peshmerga unit committed the reported acts.

Current status

On September 21, 2026, the KRG announced completion of a four-year process to unify Peshmerga forces. Prime Minister Masrour Barzani attended the ceremony with President Nechirvan Barzani and Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani. Barzani credited the United States and the coalition against the Islamic State with supporting the reform. He identified stronger military capabilities, advanced weapons, air defenses, and personnel development as priorities. In April 2026, the Peshmerga Ministry had sought radars and counter-drone systems; air defenses had intercepted drones targeting Peshmerga positions in Sulaymaniyah during attacks from March 28 to April 1.

The announced structure placed Peshmerga in First and Second regional commands. A commander from the former KDP-linked Force 80 led First Command, while the former commander of PUK-linked Force 70 led Second Command. That continuity leaves the extent of integration open: the announcement established a formal structure, while effective unification depends on shared command, personnel administration, financing, and operational decisions across former party lines. The force’s continuing tasks include defense of the Kurdistan Region, coordination with Iraqi forces against Islamic State cells, protection of civilians, and accountable conduct by both regional and party-linked units.