[4] At an early age he was sent by his older brother Sheikh Ahmed Barzani to join with about twenty men the revolt of Kurdish chiefs of Az Zibar against the British in Iraq.

The aerial bombardments led to widespread damage and setbacks, leading Sheikh Ahmed to surrender to Turkish forces on the then-contested border with Turkey in June 1932, while Mustafa Barzani and a brother Muhammad Sadiq continued fighting for another year.

In November 1947, Barzani met for the first time Mir Jafar Baghirov, the First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party, to discuss what the Kurds could do in the Soviet Union.

[17]On 19 January 1948, a conference was held gathering Kurds from Iraq and Iran in Baku, where Barzani outlined a plan for the Kurdish movement.

Only one of these letters reached the Kremlin and shortly afterwards in March 1951, Soviet officials began investigations to address the concerns of Barzani and his followers.

Recounting the story years later to Yevgeny Primakov, Barzani recalled that he had bought a uniform at a Voentorg (military supplies) store while in Tashkent in 1951, and took a picture of himself wearing it.

This picture somehow fell into the hands of British intelligence, which was the source of rumors of Barzani having been inducted as a member of the Soviet Red Army.

[21] During his time in exile, the Kurdish Democratic Party was founded in Iraq, holding its first Congress on 16 August 1946, in Baghdad, electing Mustafa Barzani as its president.

Barzani quickly asserted control over the KDP, ousting the General-Secretary Ibrahim Ahmad and replacing him with the pro-Communist Hamza Abdullah in January 1959 and cementing ties with the ICP.

[25] Along with the Communists, Barzani and the KDP sided with Qasim during an uprising of Ba'athists and other Arab Nationalists in Mosul in March 1959, entering into the city to fight off the insurrection.

Other figures within the KDP such as Ahmad and Talabani began to voice more opposition to Qasim through party publications, displeased with the lack of progress towards any autonomy for the Kurds.

[27] Barzani attempted to gain support from the United States, alienating many Iraqi progressives and the ICP, who felt that such a move was a betrayal for everything the KDP stood for.

The Nasserist Colonel Abdul Salam Arif become president of Iraq and the Ba'athist General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr become prime minister.

The campaign faced difficulties though, and allowed for President Arif's power grab in November 1963, ousting the Ba'athists from the national government.

The operation was inconclusive, with the government unable to make any significant gains against Barzani and his forces, which were receiving supplies through the Iranian border.

Before a major operation that was to take place in March against Barzani's headquarters near the border of Iran, President Arif died in a helicopter crash on 13 April 1966.

The civilian prime minister Abd ar-Rahman al-Bazzaz saw the futility of the military operation and instead proposed Barzani a peace offer, which incorporated a number of demands of the KDP, forming the "Bazzaz Declaration".

[33] President Arif would however recognize the troubles the war was bringing, and seeking to cement his own position in Iraq decided to visit Barzani that fall.

[35] In July 1968, the Ba'ath Party, supported by the army, overthrew the Arif government and assumed control of Iraq, returning Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr back to power.

The Ba'ath realized the toll the military operations in Iraq were taking and signaled its willingness to settle the Kurdish issue peacefully.

Barzani demanded that the Ba'ath sever ties with pro-government Kurds and the Ahmad-Talabani faction, and recognize him as the sole power within the KDP, as well as terms of autonomy was also discussed.

[38] However relations quickly began to deteriorate as Barzani accused Iraq of continuing Arabification to decrease Kurdish standings in contested cities such as Kirkuk and in not being committed to a genuine autonomous zone.

[41] The 1975 Algiers Agreement was signed between Iran and Iraq in March during an OPEC conference in Algiers, mediated by Algerian President Houari Boumediène and thus ending the long-running feud between the two states over the Shatt al-Arab and other border disputes, with the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger seeing it as necessary realpolitik to preserve stability in the Middle-East and close opportunities for the Soviet Union to exploit against Iran.

Ahmad and Talabani, along with their supporters, later established the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in June 1975, criticizing Barzani and KDP for what they described as "the inability of the feudalist, tribalist, bourgeois, rightist and capitulationist Kurdish leadership".

Barzani and his aides continued trying to get support from the United States, seeing that the Soviet Union had settled for amicable relations with the new government in Iraq.

[45] Barzani lived to witness significant geopolitical changes, including the overthrow of the Shah, the departure of Henry Kissinger after Gerald Ford's defeat in the 1976 U.S. presidential elections, and the death of Algerian President Houari Boumediene, all of which influenced the Kurdish struggle.. Seeking to treat lung cancer, Barzani went to the United States, and died on 1 March 1979,[46] at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., while undergoing treatment.

[3] His son, Massoud Barzani, was the leader of the KDP and was re-elected as the President of the Iraqi Kurdistan region with 66% of the popular vote in July 2009.