Mustafa Barzani - Early Life

Early Life

Mustafa Barzani was born in 1903 in Barzan, a village in northern Iraqi Kurdistan, (then part of the Ottoman Empire). Following an insurrection launched by his tribe, he was moved along with his mother and the rest of his family in to jail, when Barzani was only at the age of 5 years. His father, grandfather, and a brother were later executed by the Ottoman authorities for other insurrections. At an early age he joined other tribal fighters in aiding Sheikh Barzinji's revolt against the British in Iraq.

In 1931 he followed his older brother, the Barzani chieftain Sheikh Ahmed Barzani, who led an insurrection against Baghdad's attempts to break up tribal power in the Kurdish regions of Iraq. The insurrection began when Sheikh Ahmed Barzani had entered into a feud with a neighboring tribal chieftain in Baradost after the latter attacked Sheikh Ahmed for heresy, prompting Iraq to intervene as they had intended to check the Barzani's tribe before then. Iraq received help from their British allies, who engaged in aerial warfare against territories in rebellion. The aerial bombardments led to widespread damage and setbacks, leading Sheikh Ahmad to surrender to Turkish forces on the then-contested border with Turkey in June 1932, while Mustafa Barzani and a brother Muhammad Sadiq, continued fighting for another year. On the advice of Sheikh Ahmad, Mustafa Barzani surrendered to Iraq.

Mustafa Barzani was kept under surveillance until 1943, when he again broke free from his exile in Sulyamaniyah as Iraq underwent the effects of World War II. Baghdad again utilized tribal rivalries to defeat Barzani, sending him, Sheikh Ahmad, and about three thousand followers fleeing across the border to Iran, entering Oshnaviyeh in October 1945, where Kurdish nationalists under the guidance of the Soviet Union were establishing a new Kurdish state. Despite differences between Qazi Muhammad and Mustafa Barzani, the arrival of Barzani's forces gave a boost to the ability of the nationalists to assert control over the region.