The Kurds were also persecuted in the newly made Syria and Iraq, both also ruled by secular nationalist regimes.
Muslim Brotherhood ideas were also first brought into Iraqi Kurdistan in the early 1940s by Kurds who studied in Baghdad.
[7][8] During the 1970s and 1980s, the main Islamist groups in Iraqi Kurdistan were two independent Muslim Brotherhood factions, one for Sorani Kurds (Halabja, Sulaymaniyah, parts of Kirkuk and Erbil), and one for Kurmanji Kurds (Duhok, parts of Nineveh and Erbil).
[12][13][14] The IMK fought in the Iran-Iraq war, when Osman Abdulaziz famously declared a Jihad and had thousands of Islamist Kurds in his group, although the IMK only became a significant group when Osman Abdulaziz declared a second jihad during the 1991 Iraqi uprisings.
Many Islamist Kurds who were living in exile in Iran, or fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan, returned to Kurdistan and joined Osman Abdulaziz.
[15][16][17] Many Kurdish Islamists had been in Afghanistan where they either fought the Soviets or received training from the Taliban or Al-Qaeda to utilise in Kurdistan.
[18] The IMK sent Kurds to Osama bin Laden, in which they told him about the atrocities that Saddam Hussein was committing in Iraqi Kurdistan.
[20] Unlike other Islamist Kurds, Salahaddin Bahaaddin, who remained in the Muslim Brotherhood, refused to rebel against Baathist Iraq and called for an Islamic nonviolent campaign instead.
[21] Salaheddin Bahaeddin was isolated from other Islamist Kurds, and in 1994 he formed the Kurdistan Islamic Union.
Eventually, a conflict erupted between the IMK and the Kurdistan Regional Government led by the PUK and KDP.
Later, the conflict ended as part of the truce, the IMK was allowed to participate in the KRG and became its third significant party.
He was an avid supporter of Kurdish independence and he did not plan on expanding his control past Kurdistan.
Ansar al-Islam attacks were so effective that they led to the formation of CTG Kurdistan by the KRG.
[30] Ansar al-Islam specifically targeted Franso Hariri, an Assyrian Christian, and killed him after 2 failed attempts on his life earlier.
He also worked with Iranian reformist Muslim thinkers, including Mehdi Bazargan and Ali Shariati.
The international Muslim Brotherhood attempted to intervene on behalf of Moftizade, however the Iranian government arrested him in 1982, and he died soon after his 1993 release.
[46][47] Iranian Kurdish Islamists also smuggled goods across the Iran–Iraq border to the Islamic Emirate of Byara.
[49] Sheikh Said rebelled against Turkey in 1925, with the goal of reinstating Islamic law and resisting the Turkish government oppression and denial of Kurds.
[52] Regardless of the Turkish government attempts at eliminating Islamism, during the 1960s and 1970s it tolerated and even promoted the Turkish–Islamic synthesis, which became the state ideology after the 1980 coup d'état.
[60][61] The Kurdish Hezbollah later rebranded into many civil organisations, including the Free Cause Party, and continued to operate through them.