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Visuals by Daniel Berehulak
Erika Solomon has reported on the Middle East for more than a decade, and Daniel Berehulak has been covering the region for 20 years. They reported from the mountains along the Iraq-Iran border.
March 28, 2026
Hidden among craggy mountaintops, and burrowed in tunnels deep underground, the forces of a would-be Kurdish insurgency lie in wait.
For decades, the rugged frontier dividing the Zagros Mountains between Iran and Iraq has been the refuge of these exiled Iranian militants, who have set up camps in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region — on the condition they do not stir too much trouble.
The map shows the Iraqi Kurdistan region in northeastern Iraq, across the border from Iran.
TURKEY
SYRIA
Tehran
Baghdad
IRAN
IRAQ
SAUDI ARABIA
2oo miles
Now, American jets and Iranian drones streak overhead so frequently that the fighters have learned to discern their models just by sound. As they listen to the United States and Israel wage war on Iran, they yearn to join the fight.
“We just have to put our boots on, and we’re ready,” said Rebaz Sharifi, a commander of forces under the Kurdistan Freedom Party. His party is one of several Iranian Kurdish groups driven from their homes throughout four decades of insurgent efforts against Iran.
These groups’ dream has long been to establish federal autonomy, akin to that of their fellow Kurds in Iraq. With Iran’s leaders battered and degraded, they hope their moment has come.
