In Chaos, Iraq’s Kurds See a Chance to Gain Ground


KIRKUK, Iraq — The chair Col. Imad Muhammad sat in belonged to a commander in the Iraqi Army. So did the tiny cup from which he was drinking his tea, the ashtray where he snuffed out his cigarettes and the Ping-Pong table and treadmill outside his office.

“They left everything behind,” said Colonel Muhammad, of the Iraqi soldiers who fled last week after Islamist extremists besieged northern Iraq.

Colonel Muhammad is an officer in the pesh merga, the Kurdish security forces who have occupied an air base, once home to the American military and then the Iraqi government, here in Kirkuk. In doing so, they claimed for the Kurds a divided city that many of them regard as their spiritual homeland. It is rich in oil, too, which could accelerate the Kurds’ longstanding drive for economic independence and eventual statehood.