Recently, when the armed forces of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Syria clashed with a group of Arab tribes and Islamist insurgent groups in Tel Temir, among the prisoners they captured from the other side were a number of Kurds from Sulaimani. In another encounter, Kurds from Kirkuk had been reported captured.
Incidents such as these belie an often heard Kurdish claim about the nonexistence of Kurdish jihadists in Syria.
The first time I realized Kurds from outside Syria were joining armed Islamist groups and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was in February 2012: A pro-PKK newspaper called Yeni Ozgur Politika was reporting that Kurds were being persuaded at Arab-run mosques in the Netherlands to join the “jihad” in Syria, against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The PKK is clearly against Kurds going for jihad in Syria. It prefers Kurds to prize their Kurdish identity above their Islamic one. Still, there are Kurds in Europe and Kurdistan who believe they are Muslims before being Kurds.
In February, following news that Hawkar Mohammed, a Kurdish student from Sulaimani, had died in Aleppo, it was never clear if he had been working in a hospital or was fighting with armed groups against the regime.
Probably the most prominent Syrian Kurd with jihadi ties is Qamishli-born Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil, better known as Yasin al-Suri, a well-known Al-Qaida facilitator and financier based in Iran who is wanted by the US government.
Jihadi groups such as Jahbat al-Nusra, Ghuraba al-Sham and Al-Qaida all have Kurdish members.
Dutch media were slow to pick up reports of Dutch citizens joining the fight against Assad in Syria. There were several debates at Dutch mosques and by Islamic groups in the Netherlands over whether jhad was legal. In Holland, a 16-year old Kurdish girl was stopped before she could travel to Syria with her husband.
According to a number of Islamic scholars it is legal to wage jihad against a corrupt leader and a tyrant if he does not repent. For many scholars, this seems to be the case in Syria. There are rumors and unconfirmed reports that Ansar al-Islam is involved in sending jihadis to Syria.
It is clear that both the PKK and the Kurdistan Region’s ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) are against armed Islamist groups in Syria, though the PKK has often accused KDP of working with the FSA.
Recently, the Kurdistan Region’s Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani told the Financial Times newspaper that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is worried about Jahbat al-Nusra and other terrorist elements.
The PKK and KDP prefer Kurds to fight in the name of Kurdish nationalism and not Islam. The PKK wants Kurds to join its own Popular Protection Units (YPG) militia, while the KDP prefers Syrian Kurds to support the KDP in Syria.
This might result in new policies by the KRG to prevent Iraqi Kurds from joining the jihad in Syria. This might be complicated, due to resistance by Kurdish Islamic scholars, though it seems that the Islamic parties in Kurdistan want to distance themselves from this issue.
In the meantime, the PKK wants to prevent Kurds from joining the FSA or Islamist groups, which are its biggest rivals for power in Syria.
