Kosrat Rasul Ali Mama Risha † Uthman Abd-Asis Ahmed Chalabi Aziz Muhammad Mohsen Rezaee Ali Sayad Shirazi Abdul Aziz al-Hakim Faisal I of Iraq Faisal II of Iraq Abd al-Karim Qasim Abdul Salam Arif Abdul Rahman Arif Tahir Yahya Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr † Saddam Hussein Ali Hassan al-Majid Taha Yassin Ramadan Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri Tariq Aziz Saddam Kamel Qusay Hussein †

Though Mahmud's insurrections were defeated, another Kurdish sheikh, Ahmed Barzani, began to actively oppose the central rule of the Mandatory Iraq during the 1920s.

In 1958, the younger Barzani and his fighters returned to Iraq from exile, and an attempt was made to negotiate Kurdish autonomy in the north with the new Iraqi administration of Gen. Abdul Karim Qassim.

As a result, Mustafa and most of the KDP leadership fled to Iran, while the nascent PUK, led by Jalal Talabani gained power in the vacuum, and lead an insurgency campaign against the central Iraqi government, which eventually also failed.

The conflict re-emerged as part of the Iran–Iraq War, with the two Kurdish parties collaborating against Saddam Hussein, while receiving military support from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Although initially a tribal dispute, the involvement of the Iraqi government inadvertently led to the growth of Shaykh Ahmad and Mulla Mustafa Barzani as prominent Kurdish leaders.

As a result, the Barzanis retreated with much of their forces into Iranian Kurdistan, joining the local Kurdish elements in establishing the Republic of Mahabad.

Unlike the previous guerilla campaign, waged by Barzani, the 1974 war was an attempt for symmetric warfare against the Iraqi Army, which eventually led to the quick collapse of the Kurds, lacking advanced and heavy weaponry.

In 1983, to avenge this liaison, he ordered the Army to abduct as many as 8,000 men and boys from Erbil province, where the clan of Barzani Kurds was based.

Over 5,000 people are believed to have been killed in the attack, which was considered to be a part of the Al-Anfal Campaign, directed against Kurds by the government under the command of Ali Hassan al-Majid, head of the Northern Bureau of the Ba'ath Party.

[30] Subsequently, one month after the Gulf War in February 1991, United States President George H. W. Bush called on the Iraqi people to stage an uprising against Saddam Hussein.

This was followed by a series of rebellions in many parts of the country, such as the south by Shi'ite groups such as SCIRI and the Islamic Da'awa Party in what is known as the Sha’ban revolution.

This gave the Kurds de-facto autonomy in the north for the first time, and the Shias in the south a sense of security after they had taken part in their own uprising against Saddam, which is referred to as the Sha'ban revolution.

The "two-state solution" for the conflict refers to the permanent separation of Kurdish-populated areas from Iraq, as opposed to retaining Iraqi unity within a federal state.

It would change the long-term status which has existed in the country following the formation of the Kurdish autonomy in Northern Iraq in 1991 facilitated by the enforcement of the no-fly zones.

Arriving in July 2002 to Iraqi Kurdistan, the CIA seldom worked with the Peshmerga, despite their claim to be on a counterterrorism mission against Ansar al-Islam.

To the disappointment of PUK Peshmerga intent on destroying Ansar al-Islam, the true mission of the CIA was to acquire intelligence about the Iraqi government and military.

CIA-Peshmerga operations eventually went beyond the scope of intelligence gathering however, as PUK Peshmerga were used to destroy key rail lines and buildings prior to the U.S. attack in March 2003.

On March 20, 2003, at approximately 02:30 UTC or about 90 minutes after the lapse of the 48-hour deadline, at 05:33 local time, explosions were heard in Baghdad, signaling the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion.

[45] Following Massoud Barzani's visit of Kurdish troops stationed in the disputed area near Kirkuk, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's party – The State of Law – issued a statement that "the visit of the President of Kurdistan Region Massoud Barzani and his son wearing a military helmet to inspect the battlefronts in Kirkuk province is a 'declaration of war' on all Iraqis not only Maliki, and even on President Jalal Talabani".

[49] In November 2016, Amnesty International reported that Kurdish authorities (namely Peshmerga and Asayish) had taken part in Kurdification (forced displacement of Arabs) in Kirkuk, namely by bulldozing homes and banishing the residents.

[51] Angered by the decision, the Prime Minister of Iraq, Haider al-Abadi, demanded the cancellation of the referendum and called on the KRG to initiate dialogue "in the framework of the constitution", ordered it to withdraw its forces from the disputed territories seized in 2014, and warned of a possible military retaliation.

Since October 2017, Kurdish news reports have made claims of Arabisation and forced demographic displacement of Kurds, most notably in Kirkuk, Tuz Khurmatu and Khanaqin.

[53][54][55] In June 2024, an Iraqi Kurdish source claimed that the Arabisation campaign of Kirkuk, under the administration of Arab governor Rakan Al-Jubouri, surpassed even the level committed by the previous Ba'athist regime.

Iraq claimed Turkey had breached provisions of the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline Agreement (ITPA 1973) by not heeding the instructions of the Iraqi Ministry of Oil.

In February 2023, the International Court of Arbitration issued a verdict in favour of Iraq and on 25 March 2023, all oil exports from the Kurdistan Region were halted.

It began on 26 August 2023, after a building that used to be the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (which was used at the time by the Iraqi Armed Forces as a Joint Operations Command) was about to be transferred back to the former following an order by the Prime Minister of Iraq.

For the first time in my tenure as prime minister, I hold grave concerns that this dishonorable campaign against us may cause the collapse of … the very model of a Federal Iraq that the United States sponsored in 2003 and purported to stand by since.

"[61] Yerevan Saeed, director of the 'Global Kurdish Initiative for Peace' at American University in Washington, expressed concerns in February 2024 about the future of the Kurdistan Region if problems persist.

[64] In his resignation statement, the judge hinted at concerns about Baghdad's departure from the principles of federalism, the political system adopted after the US-led invasion of Iraq.