Peshmerga

The Peshmerga, a Kurdish name usually rendered as those who face death, are the armed forces of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Under the Iraqi constitution federal regions are responsible for their own internal security forces, and the Peshmerga formally answer to the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs of the Kurdistan Regional Government. The modern force emerged in 1946 as the national army of the short-lived Republic of Mahabad in Iranian Kurdistan, where Mustafa Barzani served as its chief of staff, and it grew through the long Kurdish struggles in Iraq, including the First Iraqi-Kurdish War of 1961 to 1970. For decades it was split between the forces of the two main Iraqi Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and later reforms have worked to unify the units under the ministry. Peshmerga fighters also took part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq alongside United States special forces.