Qandil Mountains

Overview

The Qandil Mountains are a mountain range in northern Iraq, within the Kurdistan Region, along the border with Iran. They have long served as the principal headquarters and main fortification of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). From Qandil, the organization established camps, fortified positions and a command network reaching across northern Iraq and into Syria. The mountains are also a longstanding stronghold of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), an Iranian Kurdish armed group.

Geography

Qandil’s position on the Iran–Iraq border gives armed groups access to rugged terrain and routes across the frontier. Its distance from Turkey has not placed it beyond Turkish military reach: Turkish aircraft and drones have repeatedly struck PKK positions there. The PKK built underground bunker complexes in the mountains, making some positions hardened targets. Plans for a campaign against those complexes contemplated specialized munitions.

The range became the center of a wider territorial network. PKK forces moved from Qandil into other parts of the Kurdistan Region and westward to Sinjar. Sinjar provides a ground link between fighters there, Qandil and areas held by PKK-linked forces in Syria. Its trade routes helped relieve pressure on PKK-controlled areas around Qandil, while the corridor supported movement of personnel and supplies. Dian Jafar, Dohuk’s Yazidi migration director, identified Sinjar in 2022 as a route for transporting PKK weapons between Syria and Qandil.

Modern history

The PKK entered Qandil in 1982 through an arrangement with the Kurdistan Democratic Party. It later expanded beyond the mountains, establishing positions elsewhere in northern Iraq and clashing with rival Kurdish forces during the 1990s. Within its Qandil-controlled area, the PKK imposed its own governing system on 658 villages in the Kurdistan Region. PJAK also established a presence in the border mountains. It has maintained that it operates independently of the PKK, although the groups have shared the Qandil stronghold and have longstanding organizational and ideological ties.

After the Peshmerga retreated from Sinjar on August 3, 2014, the Islamic State advanced against the district’s Yazidis. PKK fighters helped Yazidis escape to areas under their control in Syria or to mountains north of Sinjar. The retreat damaged Yazidi confidence in Peshmerga protection. Operating from Qandil, the PKK drew on that dissatisfaction to establish control in Sinjar and organized Yazidi volunteers into the Protection Forces of Shingal. Its expansion into Sinjar connected its Iraqi positions with forces in Syria and gave it a potential launching point for operations in Turkish cities.

The PKK’s Sinjar presence also had consequences for Yazidi civilians. On April 9, 2022, a Yazidi teenager returned to his family in Sinjar after two months in PKK captivity. A local resident reported that the PKK had taken him to Qandil for training as a fighter. Jafar reported that the PKK kidnapped Yazidi children to force them to fight and that families feared speaking publicly.

Security

Qandil has been a command center for PKK activity beyond Iraq. Turkish Kurdish leaders based there dominated the collective leadership of the PKK and the PYD–YPG in Syria. Murat Karayilan, Cemil Bayik, Duran Kalkan and Riza Altun were identified as leaders of the Qandil-based PKK command. That command exercised deep influence over the People’s Defense Units (YPG). Squadron and platoon commanders who joined the YPG after its creation in 2012 had limited prospects for promotion without PKK credentials. Advancement through ideological academies required long service in the PKK under direct Qandil control.

Turkey repeatedly bombed PKK targets in Qandil. During the Syrian civil war, most Turkish bombing discussed in relation to Kurdish armed groups targeted PKK fighters sheltering in the mountains. In 2017, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signaled possible further military action in Iraq while Turkish forces were already striking Qandil targets. Turkey later widened operations against PKK strongholds in both the Qandil and Sinjar Mountains. Its campaign increasingly relied on airstrikes and drones against positions and leaders in northern Iraq.

Present day

The PKK announced in 2025 that it would withdraw its fighters from Turkey. That step left its longstanding bases in northern Iraq, including Qandil, central to the next phase of talks. Ankara continued to regard the PKK’s Qandil presence as a security concern and pressed for dismantling the organization’s military structure. The mountains’ links to Sinjar and Syria meant that a withdrawal from Turkey alone did not settle the status of the PKK’s wider network.

Qandil has also remained relevant to tensions between Iran and PJAK. PJAK reiterated in 2026 that it operated independently of the PKK. An officer of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was killed in the Qandil range on October 17, 2026. The Islamic Republic of Iran did not disclose how he died.