Uncertainty over US and Israeli war goals is holding back Iranian Kurdish opposition groups urged by President Donald Trump to rise up against the Islamic Republic, Kurdish analysts told Al Jazeera.
From Trump’s call for the Iranians to overthrow their government, to US arguments that its ally Israel forced it to attack Iran, to debunked claims that the attacks on Tehran were somehow defensive, Washington has yet to offer a clear explanation for its attacks on Iran or what its plans beyond them might be.
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That leaves potential allies, including Iranian Kurdish opposition groups, not knowing what will come next. Of the various ethnic groups within Iran, the Kurds are arguably the most organized and militarily experienced. Opposition sentiment toward the government in Tehran is also widespread.
Iranian Kurdish opposition groups have established political networks, fought rebellions against central government forces, endured repression and divisions, and gained combat experience alongside other Kurdish movements in other countries, making them one of the few organized armed challenges to the Islamic Republic.
Kurdish opposition groups have also recently worked to heal divisions between them.
The Coalition of Iranian Kurdistan Political Forces, a forum that allows many of Iran’s Kurdish opposition groups to coordinate activities against the Iranian state from their strongholds in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq, was announced on February 22, less than a week before US-Israeli attacks on Iran began, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The attacks have devastated Iran, but many observers believe that a complete defeat of the Iranian government is not possible with air power alone. But with the American public largely opposed to the Iran war, and particularly the prospect of American soldiers on the ground after the Iraq war in the 2000s, Trump himself has raised the possibility of Iranian Kurdish forces leading the charge.
Trump said he would be “all for it” in comments made Thursday.
Several US media outlets have already reported that US officials have contacted leaders in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, where many Iranian Kurdish opposition groups are based, to discuss the possibility of facilitating a ground operation inside Iran.
Outnumbered by Iranian ground forces, estimated at around half a million, Iranian Kurdish opposition groups could probably only muster a maximum of 10,000 fighters, leading analysts to believe they would rely heavily on American or Israeli support, including airstrikes and weapons supplies.
However, given the experience of American alliances and the mercurial nature of Trump, who has repeatedly shown himself willing to attack even close allies, it remains unclear whether the Iranian Kurds are prepared to risk what Tehran warned on Friday would be widespread retaliation.
Past betrayals
“Kurdish political opposition to the Islamic Republic goes back decades,” Kamran Matin, professor of international relations at the University of Sussex, told Al Jazeera.
“Since the early 1990s, they have been pushed to northern Iraq, where they have established a kind of modus vivendi with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG, or Kurdish region of northern Iraq),” said Matin, who is an Iranian Kurd. “Given what is at stake, any Kurdish offensive against the Islamic Republic would need the KRG’s acceptance.”
“If Trump declares victory midway and leaves a wounded republic in its place, he will likely have both the means and the desire to punish the KRG and, more importantly, the people there,” Matin added. “At the same time, they are not in a position to flatly reject Trump’s request.”
The Kurdish experience of past US operations in the Middle East is far from reassuring. In 1991, after President George HW Bush called on the Kurds to rise up against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the subsequent rebellion received no support, leading to tens of thousands of deaths and years of displacement.
Later, during the fight against ISIL (ISIS), the Syrian Kurds became key partners of the United States, only to see American support falter during the fallout of the 2017 Kurdish independence referendum in Iraq and again in 2019, when partial US withdrawals from northern Syria exposed Kurdish forces to Turkish offensives, forcing mass evacuations and deepening political marginalization.
Despite that, Shukriya Bradost, an Iranian-Kurdish security analyst and researcher at Virginia Tech, said there was “cautious hope” among opposition groups that the Iranian Kurds would receive support from the United States.
“However, there is also concern that if Washington reaches an agreement with the remaining elements of the Iranian regime to end the war, Kurdish groups could once again be marginalized and abandoned to face a new central government that could continue the same repressive policies,” Bradost said.
Knock-on effect on Iraq
Most Iranian Kurdish armed opposition groups are based in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, which operates a largely autonomous regional government from Baghdad. Those groups include the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK), the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK) and Komala.
The groups have been exiled there since the 1980s and 1990s.
Any move in response to Trump’s invitation could have serious consequences for the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, its fragile institutions and its population of about five million people.
On Friday, Iran launched missile and drone attacks against the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan.
This followed comments by Ali Akbar Ahmadian, a member of Iran’s Defense Council, who told the semi-official Mehr news agency that Tehran could launch widespread attacks in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq if local authorities failed to crack down on what he described as rebel groups backed by the United States and Israel, who were allegedly plotting to enter Iran.
“The KRG has been very clear that it does not want to be part of a war with Iran,” Bradost said. “As a non-sovereign entity within Iraq, it is one of the weakest actors compared to sovereign states in the region and has therefore been among the first targets of Iranian retaliation.”
The Kurdish region of northern Iraq has faced repeated Iranian missile and drone attacks in recent years, Bradost said, and the United States offered little protection during those attacks.
“Furthermore, after the 2017 Kurdish independence referendum, Washington ultimately supported the Iraqi central government and Iranian-backed Shiite militias that acted against Kurdish-controlled areas,” Bradost continued. “Because of this history, despite the KRG’s long and changing relationship with the United States since the 1960s, there is deep caution about engaging in any US or Israeli confrontation with Iran.”
Yet despite that caution, as well as ideological misgivings among many left-wing Kurdish groups about partnering with the United States and Israel, the moment may prove too good an opportunity to turn down.
The years of war following the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza have seen the power of Iran’s network of alliances decline across the region. Similarly, it can be said that the 12-day war in June 2025, coupled with the current attack on Iran, has weakened the Islamic Republic more than ever.
“They have been fighting the Islamic Republic for about five decades, with 50 years of repression before that under the Pahlavi regime,” said Hemn Seyedi of the University of Exeter. “The mistrust is very real, but this could be the opportunity they have been waiting for.”
Mass protests across Iran in January – when thousands of people were killed – had shown the strength of anti-state sentiment, Seyedi said, and he believes many are likely to support a Kurdish rebellion.
“Everything I hear from the Iranian Kurdish opposition in (Iraq’s Kurdish region) suggests we may see something in the coming days,” Seyedi said.
