Ansar al-Islam in Kurdistan, simply called Ansar al-Islam, is a Kurdish Islamist militant and separatist group. It was established in northern Iraq around the Kurdistan Region by Kurdish Islamists who were former Taliban and former Al-Qaeda volunteers, which were coming back from Afghanistan in 2001 after the Fall of Kabul. It was formed with the motive of establishing an Islamic state around the Kurdistan region and protecting Kurds from other armed insurgent groups during the Iraqi insurgency. It imposed strict Sharia in villages it controlled around Byara near the Iranian border.
Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan is an unofficial term commonly used within Kurdish nationalist circles when referring to a roughly defined area in northern Iraq inhabited by Kurdish-speaking people. The proponents of Kurdish nationalism consider Iraqi Kurdistan, together with Turkish Kurdistan, Syrian Kurdistan, and Iranian Kurdistan as collectively forming Greater Kurdistan. Much of the geographical area of Iraqi Kurdistan is part of Kurdistan Region (KRI), a semi-autonomous region in the Republic of Iraq. Those areas not incorporated into KRI are referred to as “disputed territories”. Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution stipulates the mechanism for solving the dispute by a date not exceeding 31 December 2007, but this has not been implemented and remains an outstanding issue. Some have suggested that the government of Iraq has made it clear that it intends to never implement the article, but instead aims to dismantle Kurdistan Region altogether.
Abdul Razzaq Said al-Naif was an Iraqi military officer and politician who briefly served as the Prime Minister of Iraq in July 1968 until he was deposed in the same month of that year. He was assassinated in 1978 under the orders of Saddam Hussein.
Leyla Qasim was a Feyli Kurdish activist against the Iraqi Ba'ath regime who was executed in Baghdad. She is known as a national martyr among the Kurds.
Rauf Rashid Abd al-Rahman is the replacement chief judge of the Al-Dujail trial of Saddam Hussein in 2006, when he sentenced Saddam and some of his top aides to death by hanging.
Iraqi Assyrians are an ethnic and linguistic minority group, indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia. They are defined as Assyrians residing in the country of Iraq, or members of the Assyrian diaspora who are of Iraqi-Assyrian heritage. They share a common history and ethnic identity, rooted in shared linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, with Assyrians in Iran, Turkey and Syria, as well as with the Assyrian diaspora elsewhere. A significant number have emigrated to the United States, notably to the Detroit and Chicago; a sizeable community is also found in Sydney, Australia.
Kurdistan Region (KRI) is a semi-autonomous administrative entity in the Republic of Iraq. It comprises four Kurdish-majority governorates of Arab-majority Iraq: Erbil Governorate, Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Duhok Governorate, and Halabja Governorate. It is located in northern Iraq, which shares borders with Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, and Syria to the west.
The 1991 Iraqi uprisings were ethnic and religious uprisings against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq that were led by Shia Arabs and Kurds. The uprisings lasted from March to April 1991 after a ceasefire following the end of the Gulf War. The mostly uncoordinated insurgency was fueled by the perception that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had become vulnerable to regime change. This perception of weakness was largely the result of the outcome of the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War, both of which occurred within a single decade and devastated the population and economy of Iraq.
The Kurdistan Regional Parliament, also known as Kurdistan Parliament - Iraq, or simply Perleman, is the parliament of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq. It is made up of representatives from the various parties, lists or slates that are elected every four years by the inhabitants of Kurdistan Region, which is currently governed by the Kurdistan Regional Government. In 2009 an amendment was applied to the Kurdistan Election Law of the year 1992, changing the name of the body to Kurdish Parliament from its previous name: the Kurdish National Assembly.
The Christians of Iraq are considered to be one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world.
Sami Abdulrahman Park is a park in Erbil, Kurdistan Region in Iraq.
Masrour Barzani is an Iraqi Kurdish politician and serving as prime minister of the Kurdistan Region, since June 2019. He is also the chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council and a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. He was sworn in as prime minister of the KRG’s ninth cabinet on 10 June 2019, after receiving 87 votes out of 97 legislators in the Kurdistan parliament.
Jawhar Namiq Salm, was a political leader, first prime minister of the KDP controlled Kurdistan region, and first president of the Kurdistan National Assembly.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party, usually abbreviated as KDP or PDK, is the ruling party in Iraqi Kurdistan and the senior partner in the Kurdistan Regional Government. It was founded in 1946 in Mahabad in Iranian Kurdistan. The party states that it combines "democratic values and social justice to form a system whereby everyone in Kurdistan can live on an equal basis with great emphasis given to rights of individuals and freedom of expression."
Ali Askari (1936–1978) was a Kurdish politician, military leader, and revolutionary. He was a prominent leader in Iraqi Kurdistan and his political party was the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
The Iraqi–Kurdish conflict consists of a series of wars, rebellions and disputes between the Kurds and the central authority of Iraq starting in the 20th century shortly after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. Some put the marking point of the conflict beginning to the attempt by Mahmud Barzanji to establish an independent Kingdom of Kurdistan, while others relate to the conflict as only the post-1961 insurrection by the Barzanis.
Zakia Ismael Hakki was an Iraqi Feyli Kurdish lawyer. She and Sabiha al-Shaykh Da'ud became the first female judges in Iraq respectively in 1956–1959. Hakki fled Iraq in 1996 after her husband was killed and was granted asylum in the United States. She returned to Iraq in 2003 and was elected to the National Assembly of Iraq and was an advisor in the drafting of the constitution.
Noreldin Waisy,, is a Kurdish political analyst and journalist. He helped found the Kurdish media broadcasting outlets Rudaw and Kurdistan 24. He served as the general manager of Kurdistan 24, based in the Kurdistan's capital Erbil, from 2015 to 2019. Waisy currently serves as the press secretary to Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Masrour Barzani.
The Makhmur refugee camp was founded in 1998, and is located in the Makhmur District, some 60 Km southwest to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRG). About 12,000 Kurdish refugees, who fled the civil war between Kurds and the Turkish army in the 1990s, live in this refugee camp. The refugees and their descendants stem from the depopulated Kurdish villages in Turkey. The Turkish authorities claim they had to depopulate the villages as they have been infiltrated by militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
The Kurdistan Region–PKK conflict is a series of battles and clashes in Iraqi Kurdistan between the ruling Kurdistan Regional Government against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its allied groups. It started in 1983 and is still ongoing in the form of an insurgency. The PKK's primary method is using guerrilla warfare against the Peshmerga.
