Kurdistan & the War on Terrorism: History & Prospects for the Future

Dr. Yaniv Voller, University of Kent; Royal United Services Institute

The regional war, which ensued after Hamas attacked Israel on the 7th of October 2023 and Israel’s launching of the Swords of Iron Operation, has distracted attention from the ever-looming threat of regional terrorism and the resurgence of the Islamic State and its atrocities. And yet, despite the decline of public interest, the Islamic State continues intensifying its operations in Syria and Iraq, taking advantage of the chaos caused by the overthrow of the Assad regime to expand its presence. American and British intelligence sources have reported hundreds of attacks during 2024, primarily in Syria but also expanding toward Iraqi territory, and the mobilization of about 3,000 recruits in the region.

It is hard to predict the pattern that future ISIS attacks will take. The gradual decline in the number of ISIS militants since its initial defeat in 2017, despite the recent trends, has meant that raids leading to the swift occupation of vast territory may be less likely in the near future, paving the way to terrorist attacks and guerrilla warfare against Syrian and Iraqi forces. Regardless of the nature of future IS attacks, the key lesson of this experience is that pushing ISIS back would necessitate the mobilization of and reliance on local forces, who are committed ideologically to fighting ISIS insurgents and are also familiar with the local terrain and its population. Indeed, the demise of the Islamic State’s Raqqah Caliphate could not have been brought about without the participation of regional forces serving as boots on the ground and as the forefront against the Islamic State’s spread.

The Peshmerga, the armed forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government, spearheaded this coalition, along with the Syrian Defense Forces, the predominantly Kurdish military force of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rojava), and various Shi‘a Iraqi paramilitaries. Of this coalition’s component, the Peshmerga was the best-organized fighting force, having experience in fighting Islamist terrorism dating back to the 1990s. Although not free of problems and weaknesses, primarily due to a declining American support in the years leading to ISIS' ascent, the Peshmerga proved crucial to winning key battles leading to the recapturing of Mosul and the other IS captured territories.

The KRG’s contribution to war efforts, nonetheless, did not epitomize only in the military sphere. For the international community observing the unfolding events, the KRG and the Iraqi Kurdish population served to legitimize the war against the Islamic State by representing moderate Islam and the readiness of Muslims to join the war efforts against a violent actor claiming to fight on Islam’s behalf. Indeed, during the war against ISIS, and even more so in its aftermath, the KRG invested tremendously in fostering a sense of moderate Islamic identity, infused in Kurdish nationalism and culture.

The KRG, as with the other forces joining the war on the Islamic State, had a clear interest in joining the war efforts and leading the campaign against ISIS. Motivated by a combination of Arab nationalist sentiments, hatred of the Kurdish entities in Iraq and Syria as representing secularism and relative liberalism, and enmity toward the close collaboration between the KRG and the United States and its regional allies, ISIS constituted no less than an existential threat to the KRG.

Nonetheless, fighting ISIS also offered yet another opportunity for the KRG to establish its de facto autonomy, its readiness to contribute to regional order and security, and, more importantly, its ability to do so. In other words, fronting the campaign against the Islamic State served the KRG in demonstrating that, despite the presence of actors such as the Islamic State in the region, the Kurdistan Region in Iraq (KRI) can still be an island of stability.

This endeavor, nonetheless, came with a terrible cost to Kurdish people, costing the lives of thousands of Kurdish fighters and civilians, joining the tragedy that befell the Yazidi people amid the ISIS-perpetrated genocide. At least from a Kurdish perspective, the Kurdish right to autonomy was further bought with the blood of the Peshmerga and the Kurdish people –– if there was still a need to prove it. No surprise, then, that the KRG’s decision to hold a unilateral referendum for independence, which won the vast majority of votes in the region, followed the triumph over ISIS. Yet, once again, this right was thwarted when the government in Baghdad, backed by its allies in Ankara and Tehran, pushed against the referendum and, relying on Shiite militias, invaded the contested Kirkuk region and essentially occupied it from the KRG.

Furthermore, despite the heavy price that the KRG has paid, and the KRG’s abandonment amid Baghdad’s aggression in the referendum’s aftermath, one cannot deny that the participation in the war on the Islamic State, and more than that, the long-term combat against Islamist terrorism in the region has contributed to the ongoing successful process of state-building in the KRI under the KRG’s orchestration, particularly in the areas of national security and fighting extremism. In other words, the instability and chaos caused by the rise and (temporary) fall of ISIS has ended up serving as yet another catalyst of Kurdish statehood by enabling the KRG, its leadership, and armed forces to restore regional order.

There is, however, an important lesson to be learned here. As the risk of the Islamic State’s resurgence becomes imminent, it is inevitable that its defeat once again will require the assembly of a regional coalition. Due to the exact circumstances discussed above, the KRG is likely to join any potential movement to fight ISIS or its future incarnations. Yet, those backing and relying on the Peshmerga, or the SDF for that matter, must take into account that this time, the demand for returns in the form of sovereignty may come even more unequivocally and with far less hesitation.

DrYaniv Voller is a Senior Lecturer in Middle East Politics at the University of Kent and an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. Before joining the University of Kent, he was a Fellow at the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. He was awarded his PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Yaniv’s research focuses on civil wars, insurgency and counter-insurgency strategies, irregular forces in warfare, and the relations between armed forces and society. He is the author of two books, Second-Generation Liberation Wars: Rethinking Colonialism in Iraqi Kurdistan and Southern Sudan (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and The Kurdish Liberation Movement in Iraq: From Insurgency to Statehood (Routledge, 2014). Between 2023 and 2025, Yaniv was the recipient of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar Award. His work has also been sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust, DFID, and the Social Science Research Council. He has provided commentary on different aspects of Middle Eastern affairs to the BBC, The New York Times, The Sunday Times, Al Jazeera, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, TRT, and other news publications.