Mullah Mustafa Barzani: The Leader Who Shaped Kurdistan’s Struggle

Mullah Mustafa Barzani, born in 1903 in Barzan, Iraqi Kurdistan, emerged from a family of resistance to become an enduring symbol of the Kurdish struggle for national rights.

Arrested at just three years old alongside his mother by the Ottoman governor of Mosul, his life was forged in conflict.

As commander of the Peshmerga, he transformed them into an organized military force that confronted British campaigns and successive Iraqi governments. In 1946, he defended the short-lived Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad before being forced to leave to the Soviet Union for 11 years.

Returning in 1958, he led the September Revolution, which culminated in the March 1970 Autonomy Agreement.

But the Algiers Agreement between Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran betrayed the Kurdish cause, ending the revolution.

Barzani left for Iran and then the United States, where he died in 1979. His body was returned home, carried on the shoulders of his people to Barzan, where he remains forever present in Kurdish memory.