New units step toward reforming Kurdish peshmerga
Some Kurdish officials are hopeful that new peshmerga brigades will be immune to politicization.
ERBIL, Iraq — Dildar Namiq, 24, is eagerly running up and down a flight of stairs in a two-story office, trying to complete paperwork to join Iraqi Kurdistan's armed forces, known as the peshmerga. He is one of the more than 600 volunteers who have applied in the last 12 days in this registration center to join three brigades that will be formed soon.
"I'm a taxi driver right now and I want to do something better in my life," Namiq said. He is wearing traditional baggy Kurdish pants and a white shirt. "I want to go to the front lines and fight Daesh," he added, referring to the Islamic State (IS) group by its Arabic acronym.
Despite some setbacks last summer, Kurdish peshmerga have been able to hold their ground against IS along a 1,050-kilometer (652-mile) frontier that stretches from the Syrian border in northwest Iraq to the Iranian border in the northeast.
Kurdish officials are pinning a lot of hope on the new brigades that will be far better trained and armed than existing units.
