IRAQ: Kurds in Combat

The Kurds are a fiercely independent people who inhabit the rugged mountains of northern Iraq as well as parts of Turkey, Syria, the Soviet Union and Iran. Many of them have long yearned to have an independent nation, called Kurdistan, and in 1970, after years of bruising clashes with the Iraqi army, they finally won an agreement that guaranteed regional autonomy by March of this year. As the date approached, neither side could agree on what autonomy meant, and when the pact finally came unstuck, a key problem was a familiar Middle...

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