The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish far-left militant and political organization based in Turkey and Iraq. Since 1984 the PKK has been involved in an armed conflict with the Turkish state, with the initial aim of achieving an independent Kurdish state, later changing it to a demand for equal rights and Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.
Kurdistan or Greater Kurdistan is a roughly defined geo-cultural historical region wherein the Kurdish people form a prominent majority population and Kurdish culture, languages, and national identity have historically been based. Kurdistan roughly encompasses the northwestern Zagros and the eastern Taurus mountain ranges. The territory corresponds to Kurdish irredentist claims.
The Kurdish–Turkish conflict is an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and various Kurdish insurgent groups, which have demanded separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan, or to have autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds inside the Republic of Turkey. The main rebel group is the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK. Although insurgents have carried out attacks in many regions of Turkey, the insurgency is mainly in southeastern Turkey. The PKK's presence in Iraq's Kurdistan Region, from which it has also launched attacks, has resulted in the Turkish military carrying out frequent ground incursions and air and artillery strikes in the region. The conflict has cost the economy of Turkey an estimated US$300 to 450 billion, mostly military costs. It has also affected tourism in Turkey.
Kurds in the United States refers to people born in or residing in the United States of Kurdish origin.
Kurdish nationalism holds that the Kurdish people are deserving of a sovereign nation that would be partitioned out of areas in Turkey, northern Iraq, and Syria based on the promised nation of Kurdistan under the Treaty of Sèvres.
The 2004 Qamishli uprising was an uprising by Syrian Kurds in the northeastern city of Qamishli in March 2004. The riots started during a chaotic football match, when some fans of the guest team (Arabs) started raising pictures of Saddam Hussein, an action that angered the fans of the host team. Both groups began throwing stones at each other, which soon developed to a political conflict as the Arab group raised pictures of Saddam Hussein while the Kurdish group raised the Flag of Kurdistan. The Ba'ath Party local office was burned down by Kurdish demonstrators, leading to the security forces reacting. The Syrian army responded quickly, deploying troops backed by tanks and helicopters, and launching a crack-down. Events climaxed when Kurds in Qamishli toppled a statue of Hafez al-Assad. At least 30 Kurds were killed as the security services re-took the city. As a result of the crackdown, thousands of Syrian Kurds fled to Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Second Iraqi–Kurdish War was the second chapter of the Barzani rebellion, initiated by the collapse of the Kurdish autonomy talks and the consequent Iraqi offensive against rebel KDP troops of Mustafa Barzani during 1974–1975. The war came in the aftermath of the First Iraqi–Kurdish War (1961–1970), as the 1970 peace plan for Kurdish autonomy had failed to be implemented by 1974. Unlike the previous guerrilla campaign in 1961–1970, waged by Barzani, the 1974 war was a Kurdish attempt at symmetric warfare against the Iraqi Army, which eventually led to the quick collapse of the Kurds, who were lacking advanced and heavy weaponry. The war ended with the exile of the Iraqi KDP party and between 7,000–20,000 deaths from both sides combined.
The People's Protection Units or People's Defense Units is a mainly-Kurdish militia in Syria and the primary component of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria's Syrian Democratic Forces. The YPG is mostly ethnically Kurdish, and also includes Arabs, foreign volunteers, and is closely allied to the Syriac Military Council, a militia of Assyrians.
The Kurdish National Council is a Syrian Kurdish political organization funded by the President of Iraqi Kurdistan Masoud Barzani and Turkey in the Syrian Civil War. While KNC had initially more international support than the ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD) during the early years of the Syrian civil war and a strong supporter basis among some Syrian Kurdish refugees, the overwhelming popular support the PYD enjoys have shadowed it in Syrian Kurdistan.
The Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) or since September 2018, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing sub-regions in the areas of Afrin, Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij and Deir Ez-Zor. The region gained its de facto autonomy in 2012 as part of the ongoing Rojava conflict and the wider Syrian Civil War. While entertaining some foreign relations, the region is not officially recognized as autonomous by the government of Syria or any international state or organization. Northeastern Syria is polyethnic and home to sizeable ethnic Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian populations; with smaller communities of ethnic Turkmen, Armenians and Chechens.
The Syrian Kurdish–Islamist conflict, a major theater in the Syrian Civil War, started after fighting erupted between the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Islamist rebel factions in the city of Ras al-Ayn. Kurdish forces launched a campaign in an attempt to take control of the Islamist-controlled areas in the governorate of al-Hasakah and some parts of Raqqa and Aleppo governorates after al-Qaeda in Syria used those areas to attack the YPG. The Kurdish groups and their allies' goal was also to capture Kurdish areas from the Arab Islamist rebels and strengthen the autonomy of the region of Rojava.
The Siege of Kobanî was launched by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants on 13 September 2014, in order to capture the Kobanî Canton and its main city of Kobanî in northern Syria, in the de facto autonomous region of Rojava.
Turkey, which had had a relatively friendly relationship with Syria over the decade prior to the start of the civil unrest in Syria in the spring of 2011, condemned the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad over the violent crackdown on protests in 2011 and later that year joined a number of other countries demanding his resignation. In the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, Turkey trained defectors of the Syrian Army on its territory, and in July 2011, a group of them announced the birth of the Free Syrian Army, under the supervision of Turkish intelligence. In October 2011, Turkey began sheltering the Free Syrian Army, offering the group a safe zone and a base of operations. Together with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey has also provided the rebels with arms and other military equipment. Tensions between Syria and Turkey significantly worsened after Syrian forces shot down a Turkish fighter jet in June 2012, and border clashes erupted in October 2012. On 24 August 2016, the Turkish armed forces began a declared direct military intervention into Syria pursuing as targets both ISIL and the Kurdish-aligned forces in Syria.
Kobanî, officially Ayn al-Arab, is a city in the Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria, lying immediately south of the border with Turkey. As a consequence of the Syrian Civil War, the city has been under control of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia since 2012. In 2014, it was declared to be the administrative center of the Kobanî Canton of the de facto autonomous Rojava, which later became the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria.
The Eastern al-Hasakah offensive was launched in the Al-Hasakah Governorate during the Syrian Civil War, by the Kurdish People's Protection Units, Assyrian Christian militias, and allied Arab forces against the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, with the intent of retaking the areas of the Jazira Canton that had been captured by ISIL. Subsequently, the Syrian Armed Forces also launched an assault against the radical militants, without coordinating with the Kurds.
The Kobanî massacre was a combination of suicide missions and attacks on Kurdish civilians by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on the Kurdish-held city of Kobanî, beginning on Thursday, 25 June, and culminating on Friday, 26 June 2015. The attacks continued into 28 June, with the last remaining ISIL militant being killed on the following day. The attacks resulted in 223–233 civilians dead, as well as 35–37 Kurdish militiamen and at least 79 ISIL assailants. It was the second-largest massacre committed by ISIL since it declared a caliphate in June 2014.
The Rojava conflict, also known as the Rojava revolution, is a political upheaval and military conflict taking place in Northern Syria, known among Kurdish nationalists as Western Kurdistan or Rojava. During the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011, a Kurdish-dominated coalition led by the Democratic Union Party as well as some other Kurdish, Arab, Syriac-Assyrian and Turkmen groups have sought to establish a new constitution for the de facto autonomous region, while military wings and allied militias have fought to maintain control of the region. This led to the establishment of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) in 2016. The supporters of the DFNS argue that the events constitute a social revolution with a prominent role played by women both on the battlefield and within the newly formed political system, as well as the implementation of democratic confederalism, a form of libertarian socialism that emphasizes decentralization, gender equality and the need for local governance through semi-direct democracy.
In early 2014, the jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant captured extensive territory in Western Iraq in the Anbar campaign, while counter-offensives against it were mounted in Syria. Raqqa in Syria became its headquarters. The Wall Street Journal estimated that eight million people lived under its control in the two countries.
The Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS), is a de facto autonomous region of Syria that emerged from 2012 onwards during the Syrian Civil War and in particular the Rojava conflict. The DFNS is formed of most of al-Hasakah Governorate and the northern parts of Raqqa Governorate and Aleppo Governorate. On 16 March 2016, the de facto administration of the DFNS declared the establishment of a federal system of government as the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria.
In the morning of 25 April 2017, the Turkish Air Force conducted multiple bombing raids against media centers and headquarters of the People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) in northeastern Syria, while simultaneously launching airstrikes against positions of the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) on Mount Sinjar, northwestern Iraq. The airstrikes killed 20 YPG and YPJ fighters in Syria in addition to 5 Peshmerga soldiers in Iraq.
