Kurdistan and The Kurds A Divided Homeland and a Nation without ...

After Sheikh Abdel Salam’s martyrdom in 1914, his
brother Sheikh Ahmad governed his Sheikhdom. The
spirit of brotherhood and love established by the previous
Sheikhs of Barzan rendered the Barzans into a unified
force that helped Sheikh Ahmad in leading a number of
uprisings and revolutions in the thirties and forties in the
20th century. This also helped his brother Mullah Mustafa
gather a big group of supporters around him. These people
became the nucleus for the army of the Kurdish Republic
in 1946 while some of them became the core group of
the revolution of 11 September 1961. Had it not been for
their loyalty, Mullah Mustafa would have been
assassinated during the first year of the revolution. I met
with these heroes in 1972 in Haj Omran, which is where
the Iraqi authorities attempted the assassination of Mullah
Mustafa when an Iraqi criminal launched a hand grenade
in the direction of Mullah Mustafa. Thanks to his four
bodyguards who threw themselves at him and protected
him with their own bodies, he was saved, while the
shrapnel hit them.
At that time I remember having asked one of those
heroes, how could he explain such a rare kind of heroism
and he replied saying that they were loyal to Mullah
Mustafa not only because he was the leader of the Kurdish
Revolution, but more importantly, because he was Sheikh
Barzan’s brother.
Indeed these were the heroes who had fought against
the Iranian government in Mahabad in 1946, and who
had fought against the Iraqi government before that, and
also who had fought against the Turkish government
during the war retreating into the Soviet Union in 1947
where they stayed for twelve years and suffered much
specifically during Stalin’s Regime. After returning from
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