Iraqi Kurdish commander says there are no plans to invade Iran
Submitted by Wladimir van Wilgenburg on Wed, 03/25/2026 - 17:40
Peshmerga general and millionaire businessman Sirwan Barzani tells MEE Iran should not be attacking Kurdish bases
Sirwan Barzani speaking to Middle East Eye in March 2026 in the Kurdistan region of Iraq (Wladimir van Wilgenburg/MEE) Off A top Iraqi Kurdish commander has told Middle East Eye his forces have no plans to invade Iran but that he is exasperated by Iranian attacks on their bases.
Sirwan Barzani, a Peshmerga major-general and millionaire businessman, said that since the US-Israeli war on Iran began on 28 February, the Kurdistan region of Iraq has faced around 430 drone and missile attacks.
Sirwan, who is responsible for holding the Kurdish frontline against the Islamic State (IS) militant group in northern Iraq, met with MEE on Tuesday, the same day that Iranian ballistic missiles killed six Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers and injured 30.
The telecoms magnate, who is the cousin of the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, Nechirvan Barzani, and nephew of its former president Masoud Barzani, referred to the strike as a terrorist attack.
“What's the reason why they attack the Peshmerga bases every day? What's the reason behind that? We did not do anything against them,” Sirwan said, referring to Iran. “We are neighbours. We have trade relations. We have historical relations.”
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Despite his anger, Sirwan was adamant when he dismissed western media reports that Iraqi Kurds were helping Iranian Kurds cross the border to fight the Iranians.
“We have not made such a decision. This is not our job,” he said. “We are in the Iraqi part to defend this part of Kurdistan. This is our duty.”
What's the reason why they attack the Peshmerga bases every day? What's the reason behind that?
- Sirwan Barzani, Kurdish commander
The commander, who earned the nickname “Black Tiger” fighting Saddam Hussein’s forces in the 1990s, said Iranian intelligence knew that these western reports were incorrect.
“They have information about everything,” Sirwan said.
“They also have the Iranian General Consulate in Erbil, and they have information that it was not right.”
No Kurdish invasion of Iran
Sam Faddis, a former CIA officer who worked with Iraqi Kurds in 2002 to prepare for the toppling of Hussein’s government, also rejected the reports.
“The Iraqi Kurds do not believe the Iranian regime is about to fall. They do not believe it has lost control. They are not about to stir up a hornet’s nest and pay the price,” he told MEE.
In Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, the sound of drone and missile attacks comes daily. Some are targeting Iranian Kurdish opposition groups, with at least five of their members killed so far.
In March 2023, Baghdad and Tehran signed a security agreement to move these Kurdish opposition parties away from the border, after Iran blamed them for the Mahsa Amini protests of 2022.
“We had the agreement between Baghdad, Erbil and Tehran, and they moved them,” Sirwan said. “There are some refugee families from Iran, and they are refugees here. Even the camps are not close to the border, but they still attack them every day.”
Plumes of smoke rise above Erbil airport following missile strikes, on 1 March 2026 (AFP)
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Sirwan is also responsible for the Peshmerga base near Makhmur, where one French soldier was killed and six others injured in an Iranian drone strike on 12 March.
French President Emmanuel Macron called the attack unacceptable. Iranian state media said the French army was supporting Iranian Kurdish groups, claims France denied.
Sirwan told MEE that Iranian intelligence knew “better than us or the French” that claims France was training the groups were not true.
“The French are not part of this war. They still aren’t, even after they (Iran) attacked the French soldiers. French President Macron said they are not part of this war.”
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Iran-backed groups in Iraq
The war on Iran has also increasingly involved Iranian-backed Iraqi factions, which have been hit by Israeli and US air strikes and have been responsible for drone attacks inside Iraq.
Sirwan said that between 85 and 90 percent of these attacks on the Kurdistan region came from factions within Iraq's Iranian-backed Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), which were created in 2014 to fight IS.
'We can see them attacking hotels, as they are doing here, attacking civilian targets. Korek has been hit 17 times. What is there? It is a resort'
- Sirwan Barzani, Kurdish commander and businessman
“Some of them are pro-Iranian, and unfortunately, they attack us more than Iran,” the Kurdish commander said.
More hardline PMF groups have also attacked Iraq’s oil fields, its army and intelligence headquarters, which Sirwan said risked destroying the country’s economy and foreign relations.
“According to the Iraqi constitution, we (Peshmerga) are part of Iraq’s security system, yet they are attacking us,” he said.
Kurdish officials have also blamed Baghdad for allowing groups on the Iraqi payroll to attack Kurds.
“So what is going on in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, it is from Iranian money, but in Iraq, it is from Iraqi money, Iraqi budget, by Iraqi blood, destroying Iraq,” Sirwan said, referring to Iranian support for armed groups across the region and Iraqi government support for armed groups inside its territory.
'One day there will be an end'
Sirwan made the case for his Peshmerga forces, saying that they had stopped IS “when the Iraqi army ran away from Mosul in 2014”.
Under the terms of a 2024 agreement between Iraq and the US, the US-led coalition will leave Iraq by September 2026.
Iran and Iranian-backed groups in Iraq have targeted Erbil air base and the US consulate in Erbil. Even before the US-Israeli war on Iran began, a number of US coalition countries had moved their troops out of Erbil.
Sirwan said these troops were only used for the war against IS. “They never ever had any rocket, missile, or fighter jets to attack Iran. Even before, they had some Apache helicopters for the war against IS, but now they don’t even have Apaches,” he said.
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No coalition forces were present in other areas of the Kurdistan region hit by Iranian attacks, he said, including in the areas of Duhok, Sulaymaniyah, and the Korek Mountain Resort, where people go skiing in the winter and is owned by Sirwan.
“We can see them attacking hotels [in Gulf countries], as they are doing here, attacking civilian targets. Korek has been hit 17 times. What is there? It is a resort,” Sirwan said.
While Iran has been able to strike back at US economic and military interests across the region, inflicting a toll on the global economy that is perhaps their greatest weapon, Sirwan thinks that at some point, Tehran will need to change its policy, given the risk of doing irreparable damage to relations with Gulf countries and the Kurds.
He said that when it came to negotiations, countries targeted by Iran would ask why their infrastructure had been attacked.
“One day, like any war, there will be an end,” Sirwan said. “But how about Iran’s relations with its neighbours?”
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