Iskan is a bustling street in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Northern Iraq, around a mile from the city’s historic citadel. At night, Iskan Street is full of small restaurants selling various types of food. It’s famous for its street food and one website calls it “the street food heart of nocturnal Erbil.”
Nine years ago this month, Iskan Street was its usual hive of activity and, in the last two weeks of September 2025, it was full of talk about the independence referendum.
The Kurdistan Region had held a referendum on September 25, 2017. Around 2.8 million people voted. More than 92 percent of the people voted for Kurdish independence.
I was there in the days leading up to and until after the referendum. It was a momentous time. Erbil was draped with Kurdish flags. Posters and banners showed the region breaking free from its Iraqi shackles. It should be recalled that under Saddam Hussein, the Kurds had been brutally suppressed.
The regime used poison gas against Kurds, massacring, kidnapping, and disappearing people, and driving others from their lands.
Tehran attacked Kurdistan amid US and Israeli strikes on Iran
Since the early 1990s, the Kurds in Iraq have had a lot of autonomy. Supported by the US in the Nineties, they were able to carve out a free zone in northern Iraq. After the United States’ invasion in 2003, their autonomy was recognized in the Iraqi constitution. The Kurdistan Region is a result of all this long, hard struggle. It is a bustling region, full of economic development.
It is also more stable than the rest of Iraq.
Today, that stability is being challenged.
US forces will be leaving Iraq at the end of this month. They are also withdrawing from the Kurdistan Region, where they were deployed in Erbil and another site. The US has a large consulate in Erbil, so Americans will remain.
Yet as US forces leave, the Kurdistan Region is wary of what may come next. The region has been subject to Iranian attacks for months. It is also threatened by Iranian-backed militias.
In the wake of the US and Israel’s strikes on Iran, the regime began retaliatory attacks on the Kurdistan Region. Iran has carried out over 1,000 missile and drone attacks. It has mostly targeted dissident Kurdish groups that are located in the Kurdistan Region. These are made up of Kurds who fled Iran over the course of the most recent decades.
Their members were involved in several groups.
These include the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, the left-wing group Komala, PJAK, and a group called Xhabat. Additionally, there is the Kurdistan Freedom Party. PAK has played a role fighting ISIS [Islamic State] alongside Kurdish Peshmerga in northern Iraq. Now, PAK members want to help fight the Iranian regime.
Iran has sought to preempt any Kurdish uprising by attacking Kurds in northern Iraq. The Kurds were spotlighted in early March 2026 when reports indicated that both the US and Israel wanted to help them in Iraq.
This is difficult for the KRG in northern Iraq because the KRG doesn’t want to be attacked by Iran. KRG leaders have a complex relationship with Iran. The Kurdish PUK party in Iraq historically has decent ties with Iran. The KDP party, which is the largest party and runs Erbil and the governorate of Dohuk, is usually more suspicious of Iran, but still cultivates ties to prevent conflict.
The Iranian attacks in the last six months have targeted the offices of the Kurdistan Region’s president, Nechirvan Barzani, and prime minister, Masrour Barzani. As such, the KRG leaders know that Iran is putting them on notice.
They have seen this before.
After the referendum, the region was punished by Baghdad. It sought to close airports in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah. It also amassed troops near Kirkuk, a city that has a large Kurdish presence.
The Kurdish political party leading officials from PUK and KDP met to discuss the crisis at Lake Dukan in the Kurdistan Region. They knew Baghdad was going to try to seize Kirkuk, which Kurds had defended from ISIS since 2014. They also knew that the US was pressuring Erbil to retreat. In addition, Turkey and Iran were taking Baghdad’s side. The region was isolated and was going to be punished for the independence vote.
IRGC commander helped coordinate attacks on Kurdistan
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani helped coordinate the attacks alongside the Shi’ite militia commanders Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Hadi al-Amiri. They ran the militias Kata’ib Hezbollah and Badr.
Alone and isolated, the Kurdistan Region faced an Iraqi offensive backed by Shi’ite militias into Kirkuk and a separate push by the Shi’ite militias into Sinjar.
The Kirkuk Peshmerga line of defense collapsed within a day, likely caused by a deal between the PUK, Iran, and Baghdad, which led to the PUK withdrawing.
The Iraqi advance was only stopped north of Kirkuk at a place called Altun Kupri. The Iraqi government areas and the KRG-run area are still defined by that line.
Today, the relations between Erbil and Baghdad appear much better. Iraq is solidifying control of other areas.
It has an agreement to disarm the Yazidi armed group YBS. It also has a new agreement with Turkey to take over the Bashiqa Turkish base. That base was once central to the Kurdish front against ISIS. Now the base will become an Iraqi federal site. As such, the Kurdish region will see Iraq empowered in the Nineveh Plains and Sinjar, two areas that border the Kurdistan Region.
In the past, the KRG viewed both Sinjar and Kirkuk as areas disputed with Baghdad. Considering the current trend, it doesn’t seem the KRG will have much of a role in either of them.
The larger concern for the KRG, expressed by its prime minister, Masrour Barzani, in a recent interview with the Financial Times, is that the region could be threatened. Barzani has disputed some of what the daily published, but the essence of the interview is clear: The KRG needs defenses. It needs defenses against drone and rocket attacks. Its Peshmerga need continued support. There are concerns that not only are US forces leaving, but funding for the Peshmerga from the US will dry up. The Peshmerga have been pressured to reform and unite. The KRG says that they have begun this process.
Rudaw media in Erbil noted on Sunday that “a State Department spokesperson said last week that Washington remains committed to withdrawing its military forces from the country by the deadline, reaffirming its adherence to the agreed timeline for ending coalition military operations in Iraq.”
Meanwhile, “the United States is proceeding with the mutually determined transition timeline for coalition forces to end military operations in Iraq,” the US State Department spokesperson told Rudaw’s Diyar Kurda in response to an enquiry.