Iranian Kurdish fighters find themselves in the middle of U.S.-Iran war as they wait in Iraq

betwixt ii fires. It's an older Kurdish locution — and it's how many Kurds living in the semi-autonomous neighborhood they inhabit in northern Iraq describe their current circumstances as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran threatens to pull them in.

Camps housing exiled Iranian Kurdish rebels who have enjoyed sanctuary in Iraqi Kurdistan for decades continue to draw both the ire and fire of Iran, as Washington weighs the rebels' potential role in any future uprising against the Iranian regime.

One of the camps hit by an Iranian drone attack in mid-March is less than an hour's drive from the Iraqi Kurdish capital, Erbil.

"It was like a big fire, a huge sound. It was terrible," said Efsane Rahimi, an Iranian Kurdish fighter and central committee member of the Organization of Iranian Kurdistan Struggle (Sazmani Khabat).

"There were a lot of people here — and our children, the women, all of them were here."

Rahimi, 39 and a mother of two, said the families of the fighters and other group members living here have since been moved for their safety. The crater left by the missile sits in the middle of a courtyard, the walls of three buildings surrounding it pockmarked by exploding shrapnel. Two fighters were injured in the attack.

The camp, a large compound comprising a collection of buildings along with outdoor space, is adjacent to a Kurdish town and clearly marked by a sign at its front entrance gates.

Rahimi is with half a dozen or so other fighters, all dressed in army fatigues, some with assault rifles slung over their shoulders.

One fighter sat under a tree drinking tea, blowing on it to cool it down. Despite the attacks on Iranian Kurdish camps, this is still a waiting game for Iranian Kurds hoping to play a part in regime change across the border.

There are an estimated nine million Kurds current living inside Iran — about 10 per cent of the overall population — and they're marginalized and repressed by Iran's clerical regime like other minority groups.

"We started the revolution [against the Iranian regime] a long time ago, not with this war," Rahimi said. "[U.S. President] Donald Trump didn't tell us directly he was going to attack Iran. It's not direct help. But all in all, it's a shared interest."

The Kurds as a whole form the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East, with a population estimated at between 35 million and 40 million people spread across the borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Armenia.

Hope for a "greater Kurdistan" is an age-old dream for many and one that has been consistently thwarted. The Iraqi Kurds have come closest to achieving something akin to self-government, although they are subject to the government in Baghdad.

Sazmani Khabat is one of a handful of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups sheltering in Iraq with the shared goal of defeating the Islamic republic.

In February, five of those groups formally united under the banner of the the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan.

Few will divulge how many actual trained fighters they have in their ranks, but they are generally estimated to be about a few thousand. Their individual camps are scattered throughout Iraqi Kurdistan, some close to the high mountain passes that separate Iran and Iraq.

Media reports at the start of the conflict suggesting the United States was preparing to arm and ready them for a cross-border attack or an on-the-ground destabilization effort were both premature and unrealistic, according to Baba Sheikh Hosseini, the secretary general of Sazmani Khabat.

"It’s not possible for one minority to remove the Iranian regime," he said. "There are 80 million people. Five-hundred-thousand people won’t be able to remove the government if 77 million others won't join them." (Iran's estimated population is closer to 90 million.)

"There should be American support to destroy the Iranian regime," Hosseini said. "It is not only for us to do. It should be by America, Qatar, Saudi, Oman. By everyone."

Still, he said, the fact that Kurdish Iranian camps in northern Iraq continue to be attacked by Iran and the Iraqi militias who have been trained and funded for years by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps means the camps are seen as a threat.

"If there's permission for us to cross the border, the regime knows how difficult it will be for them," Hosseini said.

But that permission won't be forthcoming, according to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil, which has assured Iran it will not let Iranian Kurdish fighters sheltering in Iraq attack Iran.

"Our position is very clear, actually,” said Dilshad Shahab, senior adviser to the KRG president. "We have a relationship with the United States. We have a relationship with the Iranian government. So we are not taking a side."

Especially as the two sides of the fire get hotter.

Iranian missile attacks have also been aimed at U.S. Military assets in northern Iraq and at oilfields there, now shut down due to the risk — threatening the entire Iraqi economy and causing widespread power cuts across Iraqi Kurdistan.

There have also been attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the U.S. Consulate in Erbil and on hotels favoured by foreigners, and the U.S. Has carried out some airstrikes on Iraqi militia bases.

But Shahab doesn't accuse Iran — at least not directly. Instead, he blames the Iraqi government in Baghdad for failing to rein in pro-Iranian militias linked to Iraq's governing parties.

"We hold the main responsibility to the Shia powers inside the Iraqi government," he said. "Because they are not taking any serious procedures to stop [the attacks.], we are getting harm from them more than anything else."

Armed Iranian opposition groups in Iraq wait to enter the war

Hosseini of Sazmani Khabat insists the leadership in Baghdad and Tehran are one and the same.

"In Iraq, the militias are in control. Not the government controlling the militias. The Iranian regime is controlling Iraq. [Many members] of the government were [exiled] in Iran in the past."

In 2003, U.S. Special forces parachuted into northern Iraq and, along with Iraqi Kurdish fighters, advanced toward Kirkuk and Mosul as part of the U.S. Invasion that deposed Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president, and his Sunni minority regime.

Years of sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia militants followed, but the Iraqi Kurds managed to carve out a position of relative autonomy within the Iraqi federation and are keen to maintain it.

It also secured the reputation of their fighters — or Peshmerga, as they’re known — as a disciplined force, making them both more desirable as an ally and more dangerous as a threat.

That has made their current position particularly tenuous, anxious to maintain their hard-fought autonomy in a hostile region while also offering support to their Kurdish brethren in Iran.

"We have to be realistic,” said Dilshad Shahab, the KRG senior adviser. "We try to help the cause everywhere, but at the end of the day, we live in this region, and we are going to be working based on the situation."

Many Kurds don't trust the U.S. To look out for their long-term interests — with Washington often seen historically as happy to use Kurdish forces for its own purposes and abandon them when the geopolitical winds shift.

Could U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran turn into ‘Iraq 2.0’?

Iranian Kurds at the Sazmani Khabat camp near Erbil remain uncertain as to how long Trump plans to prosecute the war.

Hosseini said it’s clear Israel is more interested in regime change than the United States.

"There is a difference between their opinions," he said. "I think Israeli policy is correct because they know how dangerous the Iranian regime is."

Efsane Rahimi said she is grateful to Trump regardless.

"Even though [the Iranian regime] is still in power, I'm happy, because we didn't believe this would happen," she said. "They destroyed drone factories, weapons factories, air force, army, navy. They left them very weak.

"So the work that has been done, it advanced us 20 years."

Senior International Correspondent

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