A Thousand Sighs, A Thousand Revolts Part 5

"It is a matter for the family and the clan to decide, not the law," Bayan countered.

"What about the man?" I asked. "Is he ever killed for having a girl-friend?"

"Everything depends on many things," Bayan said. "Often if the man and woman are young and unmarried, their families will talk, no one is killed, they will marry. But if they are older and it is adultery, the woman will ninety-nine percent be killed, and sometimes the man."

A FEW DAY SLATER, Bayan and I set off in a hired car to visit Aqra, about two hours east of Dohuk. Thought to date back to the 700s B.C., Aqra was developed by Prince Zayd, a Zoroastrian, who may have named the city after the Kurdish word for fire, agir, a sacred element to those of his faith. Probably founded in what is now Iran, Zoroastrianism is the first-known belief system to posit the concepts of life as a struggle between good and evil, individual responsibility for behavior, and life everlasting. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all trace many articles of their faiths back to Zoroastrianism.

Aqra lay in a fertile valley surrounded by wheat and barley fields, and orchards of olives, figs, pomegranates, peaches, and plums. Kurdistan's famed mountains notwithstanding, it holds at least an equal area of flat lands, which, during the early 1980s, produced 35 percent of Iraq's cereals, 50 percent of its corn, 33 percent of its rice, and most of its tobacco.

The Aqra valley was also filled with picturesque villages built of clay and stone-a far cry from the crisp new village settlements almost everywhere else in the region. Unlike the vast majority of rural Iraqi Kurdistan, the Aqra valley had not been destroyed during the Anfal. It was largely occupied by the Surchi, Harki, and Zibari tribes, who had supported the Iraqi government during the Kurdish revolution. Traditional enemies of the Barzanis, these tribes and various others had wanted nothing to do with Mulla Mustafa, and provided the Baathists with small standing armies, in return for stipends, to help fight the rebels. Most of the tribes, however, were never so much pro-Baath as they were anti-Barzani, often treating the Iraqi government as if it were yet one more tribe to play off against the others.

Many Kurds call those who cooperated with the Iraqi government jash, or "little donkey." The first jash were recruited during the 1961 to 1963 Kurdish revolution, at which time they probably numbered about 10,000, but after 1983, their number grew exponentially, to reach as many as 150,000 by 1986. By that time, most Kurds were becoming jash as a way of evading service in the Iraqi army during the Iran-Iraq War. As jash, the Kurds' duties were light-guarding checkpoints, keeping the local peace- and they could remain at home, farming, herding their animals, protecting their families, and earning a small salary.

Many jash also remained secretly aligned with the peshmerga and, when the 1991 uprising began, quickly abandoned the Iraqis for the Kurds-though only after being granted amnesty by the Kurdish leaders.h.i.+p. Shrewdly hedging their bets, the jash also helped the regular Iraqi forces who surrendered to withdraw safely behind enemy lines.

During my travels, most Kurds told me that the jash had been completely forgiven and melded back into Kurdish society. However, those who had not become jash were always quick to point out that status and to praise others who had done the same. Theoretically, tribes such as the Surchi, Harki, and Zibari were now equal partners in the new Kurdistan, but tensions simmered beneath the surface.

AQRA WAS BUILT up a mountainside, with houses stacked one on top of the other halfway to the summit. Roofs served as walkways and plazas, and narrow staircases led between homes. A large mosque was located at one end of the city, along with a religious library and school. Yellow KDP flags fluttered everywhere-undoubtedly to counter the region's anti-Barzani past. In the center of town sprawled an ancient courtyard with an open-air market where black-shrouded women silently examined the wares.

Bayan and I stopped at the mayor's office. Expected, we were enthusiastically received with multiple gla.s.ses of tea, served with fruit and candy, and given welcoming speeches by various officials. Then the mayor a.s.signed us a guide to take us up the mountain to the ruins of a palace that apparently reigned on top.

Leaving from the central square, the guide led us up to one rooftop after another. Breathing hard, we pa.s.sed women baking bread and was.h.i.+ng clothes, children studying and playing ball. But our climb had only just begun: beyond the highest rooftop, a stony path continued zigzagging up the mountainside, heading first to three Zoroastrian caves. Said to be dug by hand, the caves contained arched doorways and ancient writings, along with blackened spots where sacred fires once burned.

Beyond the caves, the path continued ever steeper and stonier. I was wearing a long full skirt and city shoes that caused me to slip and slide, but they were nothing compared to Bayan's long, tight skirt and four-inch-high stacked heels. Nonetheless, she had perfect control, climbing far more easily than I. She laughed away my concern for her comfort.

Baking nane-tanik "Don't worry," she said. "I am very happy here. This is a very great time for me. I have never been to Aqra before, and I love the mountains. Even during the uprising, when we were climbing to Turkey, I didn't mind."

Bayan had been raised in the city, but, like many Kurds I met, she had an intimate, comfortable relations.h.i.+p with the outdoors. Everywhere I went, I found many like her-people of all ages and backgrounds who clambered up and down mountains as if they were hills. Old men and women, children, and even the out-of-shape urban middle-aged-all moved at a remarkable pace, making me wonder at times if there is such a thing as a mountain-climbing gene.

Finally, Bayan, the guide, our guards, and I climbed up one last incline, onto the mountaintop. The world and time suddenly collapsed. All around us was a flat and silent plateau. To one side sat a lone peshmerga in a lookout post with a KDP flag dancing above his head. To the other side were the remains of what must have once been an enormous palace, spread out over hundreds of yards. Most of the ruins was now covered with sod, but a few walls were intact, while on the far side were the broken clay pipes of a sophisticated irrigation system.

Aqra, built up a mountainside The guide told us that the palace had been built by the Romans. The peshmerga said that it had been built by the Kurds. Neither hypothesis seemed entirely credible to me, but it scarcely mattered. The palace felt like a tantalizing secret. It was invisible from down below.

On the way back to Dohuk, Bayan suggested that we take a short detour, and we turned off the main road to travel a scenic back route over a small mountain. I enjoyed the detour, but far more wonderful than the drive was Bayan's reaction. Her eyes were dancing. "This is not part of the program, we are traveling a forbidden way," she said, clapping her hands in excitement, and quoted a famous Arabic saying. "To do something forbidden is very delicious."

AMIN AND HIS FAMILY invited me to dinner and to spend the night at their house-a relatively common invitation in Kurdistan, where dinners often led to overnights, perhaps because of the region's general unrest. I accepted. I liked talking to Amin, who, along with Bayan, was one of the few people I'd met in Dohuk who wasn't trying to impress me with the accomplishments of the Kurds and their safe haven. In fact, the Kurds and their safe haven were impressive, but I wanted to draw that conclusion for myself.

We met at the Inst.i.tute of Fine Arts, then wandered through the streets to the Mazi Supermarket, the violet-blue building that I'd noticed when first arriving in Dohuk. The biggest and most modern market in Kurdistan, the Mazi was stocked with everything from imported foods and cosmetics to German-made refrigerators and Sony video cameras. However, few Kurds could afford the Mazi's prices; the store catered mostly to foreign aid workers.

Which is not to say that Kurds did not frequent the market. Walking up and down the gleaming aisles, ogling the wares without any intention to buy, was a favorite form of entertainment in Kurdistan, especially in the evenings. There was little else to do in Dohuk at night-or anywhere in the safe haven for that matter. People visited the city from all over the region-including Baath-controlled Iraq-specifically to spend time at the Mazi.

As we neared the store, we ran into Amin's friend Farhad, who walked with us for a few blocks.

"What about the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center?" Farhad asked when he learned where I was from. "Didn't they make you want to attack all Muslims?"

"No," I said. "That won't solve anything, and besides, most Muslims are innocent-I think the United States needs to reexamine its foreign policy instead. There has to be more dialogue between the East and the West."

Farhad was silent for a moment. "You are a humanitarian," he finally said. "And that is very beautiful. But I cannot think like you. If I were American, I would want to attack all Muslims. I myself want to kill Arabs and Turks. I hope there will be war so I can kill my enemies."

His face had darkened, and I s.h.i.+vered a little, wondering who he was. But I also recognized that I had a luxury he did not have. As the citizen of a stable, powerful nation, surrounded by peaceful neighbors, I could afford to talk about a vague idealistic future filled with cultural exchange. But as the citizen of a fragile semiautonomous state, surrounded by hostile neighbors, Farhad had to worry about the immediate and very real problem of survival.

Over the next hour or so, Amin and I explored the Mazi market, wandering up and down every aisle several times. One section held fresh fruits, breads, and other local goods, but most shelves displayed hundreds of imported products, many from Turkey, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Iran, India, and Oman.

Outside the store, we sat on benches and ate ice-cream bars. Night had fallen, and the sky was startlingly clear, white clouds pa.s.sing before a full moon, sharp as a photograph in a developing tray. Strings of lights swooped up the sides of the White and Black Mountains framing Dohuk, while neon sunbursts advertising the market flashed overhead.

A large family pa.s.sed by, the men swaggering in fine shal u shapik up front, the women struggling with children and packages behind.

"When I see that family, I remember a sad joke," Amin said. "A woman tells her friend, 'I know my husband loves me so much!' 'That's wonderful,' the friend says. 'He must be very generous and kind.' The first woman answers, 'No, that's not right. I know he loves me because he beats me all the time. . . .' "

A half hour later, we took a taxi to Amin's home. Shadows jumped back from the curb as we drove, melting into darkened buildings and blind alleyways. Black shapes skulked here and there.

When we arrived, Amin's teenage sister and mother were waiting. Delicious smells were wafting out of the kitchen. Beaming, Amin's sister sat me down on the living room floor, while her brother brought out small plates of pistachios and olives, along with twelve-ounce vodka cans-common in Kurdistan.

"First you will take a drink, then we will eat, then we will drink some more, and then you will tell us when you want to sleep!" Amin said, and disappeared again. Smiling shyly, his sister turned the television to the BBC.

But a moment later, Amin was back, his face sagging. A folded piece of paper was in his hand.

Somehow, although the family didn't have a phone, Dr. Shawkat had tracked me down. Apparently, he'd called someone who knew someone who brought the note.

"Christiane must go back to Sayyed Majed's house immediately," the note said. "Her life is in danger, and she will be better protected there."

"This note is like a dagger in my heart," Amin said.

"What does this mean?" I said. Had something happened-an Iraqi invasion perhaps-or was Dr. Shawkat just being overly protective?

I suspected the latter, but I didn't see how I could take the chance. Amin, his sister, and mother didn't want me to take the chance either.

You must go, they all agreed. Sayyed Majed has guards, and you will be safe there.

The taxi ride home seemed much longer than it had before, as I illogically imagined Saddam's agents suddenly pulling up, blocking our path, hauling us out.

But at Majed's, the family was surprised to see me. They knew nothing of Dr. Shawkat's note, though he had called for me earlier and been startled to learn that I wasn't coming home that night. He'd also taken Amin's name and particulars.

I knew it, I thought.

At the same time, I also realized that I was happy to be back. I did feel safer here, with the guards out front. Amin's neighborhood had been half lit and filled with shadowy doorways.

All that night, I pictured Amin back home, alone with his mother and sister, and wished that things had worked out differently. We'd been having an interesting conversation; I hadn't been ready to leave.

THE NEXT DAY, I telephoned Dr. Shawkat to complain.

"But you can't stay with just anyone!" he said angrily. "We don't know this family. Who is this family?"

"They're not just anyone-Amin works at the Inst.i.tute of Fine Arts, and his father's a lawyer. Many people know them," I said, while noticing Dr. Shawkat's telling use of the word we.

"It doesn't matter-who are their neighbors? You don't know their neighbors," he said, while I silently thought that he'd made a good point. "You must be careful."

CHAPTER SIX.

Balancing Acts THE ROAD TO AMADIYA HEADS NORTHEAST OUT OF DOHUK through a land of red earth, tan clay, and granite. Bypa.s.sing the ruins of Saddam Hussein's old castles, it slips through rolling, jutting, jockeying hills, climbs up a steep crest, and points down again into a wide, fertile plain. Black and blue mountains with snowcaps tower in the distance.

Descending, the road enters a valley, flecked here and there with reconstructed villages and stone outposts guarded by peshmerga-sitting, watching, waiting. More black mountains arise from behind, as if sprouting out of the earth, and, suddenly, the whole world seems contained in the valley, the villages, the peshmerga, the mountains.

The sun pours silver dust down from the sky and the far wall of mountains moves closer, evolving as it does so from black to green. Diamond-necklace waterfalls appear, along with dark caves, hard to pick out at first, but then seemingly everywhere.

The road turns a corner, to abruptly reveal a mesa sitting alone in a valley, surrounded by s.h.i.+ny, lime-colored fields. Steep cliffs drop off the mesa's sides like a curtain, while scattered across the saddle on top are what look like broken pieces of rock: Amadiya, straight out of the Arabian Nights. Best known in Kurdistan today as the capital of the Bahdinan emirate, founded about A.D. 1200, Amadiya is one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities, dating back to the a.s.syrian Empire in the first millennium B.C.

The Bahdinan princes were among the most respected of the Kurdish rulers who reigned during the Ottoman Empire. Tracing their ancestry back to the early caliphs of Islam, they were honored as a near-saintly family, so much so that no person dared use the same dish or pipe that was used by a Bahdinan. Some Bahdinan rulers even "covered their heads with a veil whenever they rode out, that no profane eye could see their countenance."

Like other Kurdish princes in power during the Ottoman Empire, the Bahdinans reigned over a confederation of diverse tribes who were sometimes cooperative with their rulers, sometimes too busy at war with one another to heed the princely word. During periods of strength, the Bahdinans could intervene in tribal affairs, demanding taxes and military service, but during periods of weakness, the tribal aghas often stopped paying taxes and declined to lend the princes military aid.

One of the greatest princes of Amadiya was Bahram Pasha, who ruled from 1726 until 1767, to be succeeded by his son Ismail, who reigned for another thirty years. But upon his death, fierce fighting broke out within the Bahdinan family, and by the time it was over, the dependencies of Amadiya-the cities of Dohuk, Aqra, and Zakho-had been split up among various Bahdinan males.

One generation later, in 1833, the Bahdinan family fell from power altogether, thanks to the b.l.o.o.d.y work of Mir Muhammad, the ambitious, one-eyed "Blind Pasha" of the Soran emirate in nearby Rowanduz. After his father died under suspicious circ.u.mstances in 1826, Mir Muhammad seized the throne, immediately killing his father's old treasurer, both his uncles, and their sons. He next advanced ruthlessly and victoriously on his neighbors, including the Bahdinan emirate, and put most of Amadiya's leading citizens to death, including the entire princely line. However, the name "Bahdinan" is still applied to the northernmost area of today's Iraqi Kurdistan, which loosely corresponds to the Dohuk governorate.

The road curling up the mesa to Amadiya bypa.s.ses several lookout posts and occasional elderly men, crouched on skinny haunches atop boulders, a princ.i.p.ality still at their feet. Near the top arches a flimsy modern gateway, painted with the names of the thirty-seven Kurdish princes who ruled Amadiya until Sultan Muhammad II consolidated all the princ.i.p.alities of the Ottoman Empire in the 1840s, thereby ending the Kurdish states.

The British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, famous for excavating the ancient a.s.syrian capital of Nineveh, across the Tigris River from today's Mosul, visited Amadiya in the early 1840s, not long after Mir Muhammad's rampage and the end of the Bahdinan emirate. "We found ourselves in the midst of a heap of ruins-porches, bazars, baths, habitations, all laid open to their inmost recesses," he writes. "Falling walls would have threatened pa.s.sers-by, had there been any; but the place was a desert."

For all Amadiya's glorious setting, a similar unhappy atmosphere hovers over the town today, its population dwindled to about ten thousand. Amadiya has lost most of its antiquities and is poor and barren in feel- a jumble of cement-poured edifices, crooked buildings, and abandoned storefronts. Its streets throng with grizzled men, a sure sign of high unemployment.

Near the town center stands a statue of Ezzet Abdul Aziz, an Amadiya Kurd martyred for his role in the 1946 Kurdish Republic of Mahabad. A near-independent Kurdish state, Mahabad was established in Iran on January 22, 1946, by the Iranian leader Qazi Mohammed and his followers, with the support of the Russians, then occupying parts of northern Iran. Joining the republic one month later was Mulla Mustafa Barzani and twelve hundred of his fighters, forced out of Iraq after their failed early revolt. But the Mahabad Republic was short-lived. The Russians withdrew from Iran in late May, leading to internal conflicts within the new republic, and it fell to the Iranian army in December 1946, almost a year to the date of its founding.

THANKS TO AN introduction from a friend, I had an invitation to stay with a branch of Ezzet Abdul Aziz's family-his nephew, Muhsen Saleh Abdul Aziz, a representative in the Kurdish Parliament, and his grand-nephew, Hakar Muhsen Saleh, the commander of an elite group of peshmerga. Another grandnephew-out of town during my visit-was the Amadiya mayor.

Hakar Muhsen Saleh lived with his wife and children in a second-story home overlooking the Ezzet Abdul statue. My taxi driver and I had some trouble finding the place, but when we did, I was warmly welcomed into a small room filled with ledgelike couches and about a half-dozen men.

Hickmat Mustafa Mahmoud arrived, a youngish man in a tan jacket. A high school teacher, and apparently one of Amadiya's only English speakers, he had been pressed into service as my translator-a role he greatly relished, he said, as it relieved him from his cla.s.sroom duties. His job was difficult and exhausting; he taught weekdays from eight-thirty A.M. to nine-thirty P.M., for a total of eighty-eight cla.s.ses and 500 dinars (about $30) a week.

With Hickmat was Muhammad Abdullah Amadi, the city historian, who had also taken the day off to introduce me to his city. A short, round-faced man dressed in a dark brown shal u shapik and red-and-white turban, Muhammad was the author of several books on Amadiya, copies of which he carried with him.

We settled down to talk, along with my hosts, the parliamentarian Muhsen Saleh, and his son Hakar. Muhsen Saleh was an elegant, older man with a long, tanned face, dressed in a steel blue shal u shapik and a black-and-white turban. His son Hakar, a handsome man with salt-and-pepper hair, wore a Western suit.

After a short general introduction to Amadiya's history, the historian zeroed in on the Bahdinan ruler Sultan Hussein Wali. In power from 1520 to 1561, at a time when much of Kurdistan was at war, Sultan Wali had succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng a peaceful princ.i.p.ality, envied by much of the land, he said. Enlightened and farsighted, the sultan had not only constructed many public buildings, mosques, bridges, roads, and hotels for travelers, but also built an extensive network of seventy-two religious schools. During Sultan Wali's reign, Amadiya had become one of the most educated emirates in the Ottoman Empire.

"Truly, it was the golden period for Bahdinan and the Kurds," Muhammad concluded, "and now we hope America will make another."

I couldn't help but wince at his optimism.

We set out to explore the city, in a BMW and two sport-utility vehicles, the latter filled with guards, friends, and neighbors-all male. As during many of my more formal visits in Iraqi Kurdistan, the women kept themselves strictly in the background, emerging only occasionally to join us for meals. Being in the large all-male groups was occasionally disconcerting to me, but usually I felt at ease, as I was treated as neither woman nor man, but as honored Westerner.

Hickmat, Muhammad, and I were a.s.signed to the BMW, driven by the parliamentarian Muhsen Saleh, whom Hickmat addressed as "Mam," or "Uncle"-a term of respect in Kurdistan. The PUK president Jalal Talabani was often referred to as "Mam Jalal," while the KDP's Ma.s.soud Barzani was "Kak Ma.s.soud," or "Brother Ma.s.soud"-more signs, I thought, of the intimate connection the Kurds feel with their leaders. A fine drizzle had begun, and when Mam Muhsen opened his trunk to retrieve his parka, I noticed a large pile of guns inside, covered with a plastic tarp.

Our first stop was the ruins of the Quba Khan school, outside the city at the base of the mesa. We had to hike down a muddy hill to reach it. Leading the way, going fast and sure, was the seventy-one-year-old Mam Muhsen. He had spent many years as a peshmerga and was still in peak physical condition.

Built by Sultan Hussein Wali in the mid-1500s, the Quba Khan school had been in operation until the 1920s, drawing scholars from all over the region, the historian said as we explored the romantic, overgrown ruins. Famous for its library, the school had functioned much like a small university, offering cla.s.ses in Islamic studies, science, math, medicine, philosophy, astronomy, and agriculture. Sultan Wali had also paid handsome salaries to teachers, stipends to students, and grants to writers and scholars-my kind of ruler, I thought.

"When we have more peace, I would like to restore these ruins and build a road down this hill so that tourists can visit," said Mam Muhsen, bending to pick a flower.

I nodded. I could easily see tourists in Amadiya. In the early green of spring, it was one of the most beautiful settings I'd ever seen.

BACK ATOP THE Amadiya mesa, we proceeded directly to the Mosul Gate, once one of four ancient entrances to the city and the only one still relatively intact. Built of large white stones, leaning heavily in upon one another, the gate was engraved with pre-Islamic figures of a sun, eagle, prince, and snake, along with four faint warriors marching along a wall. Gazing down the steep mesa from the wall, I could just make out a path that had once been a road leading up to the city from the valley below.

Not far from the Mosul Gate stood the minaret of the Amadiya mosque. Twenty-seven meters tall, with 103 steps leading to its top, it was built of a warm brown stone. Probably erected during the time of Sultan Wali, the minaret had been partially destroyed by the Iraqis in 1961, but rebuilt by the townspeople in 1965. They'd used the original stones, said to have come from Gara Mountain, miles away, and transported across the plain and up the Amadiya mesa one by one, through the work of hundreds of people in a queue.

On the eastern edge of the city stood the tomb of the Sultan Wali, looking like a simple gray igloo on the outside, but lovely within, with a graceful dome, coffin made of grape wood, and Kufi calligraphy script. A verse from the Quran on the tomb read: "Everything (that exists) will perish except His own Face."

THAT EVENING, OVER BEER, soft drinks, and nuts, Mam Muhsen told me his history. We were relaxing on the floor of a large front room with a kerosene heater and picture window overlooking the town; later that night, mattresses would be rolled out on the floor for the family's teenage daughter and myself.

We all stretched out, Mam Muhsen half reclining on his elbow as he rubbed his green stocking feet together. He was still in his shal u shapik and black-and-white turban, and looking as elegant as ever. He, his son, and I were the only ones drinking alcohol. Hickmat and Muhammad, as stricter Muslims, refrained.

A servant tiptoed in to discuss the dinner menu. Something simple perhaps, like chicken kebab and salad? We all agreed. We had feasted earlier, on the Amadiya specialty dughabba, which are wheat patties stuffed with ground lamb and served in a broth of goat's milk flavored with mint. I'd been skeptical, but they'd been delicious.

Mam Muhsen spoke about his childhood, when he and his family had fled to Iran following the first failed Barzani revolt of 194345-thirty years before the Algiers Accord. They had lived in the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad but, when it fell, were forced to return to Iraq. His uncle was executed, and his father was imprisoned for seven years.

As an adult, Mam Muhsen himself joined the Barzani movement. "I worked as a peshmerga from 1961 until 1975," he said. "All that time, except for the cease-fires, I was living in the mountains, with about one hundred men at my command.

"My most memorable battle was on Hindren Mountain, where I was in charge of three thousand peshmerga. There was constant sh.e.l.ling. We took positions in the openings in the rocks, but when the sh.e.l.ling started, we went into shelters. They were covered with thick branches and soil with two stones on top. One time in the shelter, I counted fifty-one explosions in one minute around me. But when the sh.e.l.ling stopped, we went back into position, and we were successful. We captured three Iraqi battalions, and took them prisoner.

"I was never taken prisoner or injured in the fighting, but in 1983, I was arrested by Iraqi intelligence. They took me to Mosul, blindfolded me, and put me in a room so small that I couldn't lie down. But my cousin Esmat Kattani was in the Iraqi ministry then, and he got me released. I came back to Amadiya.

"Later, Kattani was chosen to be an Iraqi representative to the United Nations. When I heard that news, I took a taxi straight to the mountains, and asked my family to join me. Without his protection, I was afraid that I or my family would be arrested again.

"That happened in 1987, and it was the first time our women and children joined us in the mountains. We dug a small shelter into the hillside. My grandchildren were very small, and they learned to run in there when they heard the airplanes.

"We stayed in the mountains until 1988, when we smelled chemical weapons and fled at night to Turkey. One of our dogs came with us to the border, but he wouldn't cross-he just sat down and howled. We saw him again when we returned. It was months later, and everything was destroyed, but the dog was still here, weak and thin. He recognized us, but he was very angry. He wouldn't come when we called."

Two or three days later, I was startled to hear this same story regarding a dog who refused to cross the border from another man in a different part of Kurdistan. Had the incident actually happened to both parties, or was something else going on-myths in the making, perhaps? Where does the line between myth and reality start? And does it matter? Either way, the story is emblematic.

WHEN I FIRST started learning about the peshmerga-themselves both mythic and real-I felt confused. To me, the term connotes armed fighters. But many Iraqis used the word, which is generally applied only to the Iraqi Kurds, much more loosely than that, to refer to any Kurd who fled to the mountains to resist or escape Iraqi repression.

When I first asked if there had been women peshmerga, the Iraqi Kurds often replied, "Oh, yes, many." But upon further questioning, it usually turned out that the women peshmerga had served primarily as support staff, cooking and caring for the men. Only a handful had actively borne arms; for that, I would have to wait until I reached Turkey, where the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) included many women guerrillas.

Living in the mountains for years at a time, the peshmerga, like most soldiers, had spent only a fraction of their days in actual battle or preparation for battle; for the rest, they'd engaged in everyday activities. In some places and periods, the peshmerga had lived only among other men, sometimes isolated in inaccessible areas for many months at a stretch, other times serving in s.h.i.+fts, with perhaps two weeks on, two weeks off to visit their families. In other places and periods, the peshmerga had taken their families with them, sometimes living in small groups, sometimes in large makes.h.i.+ft mountain communities, complete with schools, hospitals, courts, and entertainment. I met teachers, doctors, lawyers, judges, and even actors who had all once plied their trades in the mountains and therefore described themselves as peshmerga, though they had never actually borne arms.

For most peshmerga, life in the mountains had been hard. They'd lived in caves and in small un.o.btrusive shelters built of stone and wood, sometimes sleeping under branches to keep warm. Free time was spent dancing, singing, telling stories, and watching Iraqi military movements. Food and other necessities were supplied by nearby villages. Without their help, the peshmerga could not have survived.

One peshmerga I met, Suleyman Hadji Badri Sindi of Zakho, explained to me how he had operated as a guerrilla leader in the early 1960s. In charge of overseeing villages in the then-government-controlled Sindi territory, he had known exactly how much wheat and barley, and how many horses and sheep, every family had, as well as who owned guns or had men of fighting age. Whenever the peshmerga needed wheat, he would contact those villagers with grain to spare, and they would hide the wheat in covered holes in the earth, to be retrieved by the guerrillas at night. Whenever Mulla Mustafa needed extra men, Suleyman Hadji would send out the word, and the Sindi men would appear, to fight for a day or two, and then return home as if nothing had happened.

At the time of my visit, the peshmerga were still a force in Iraq, although they were not as fierce as they once had been and functioned more like ordinary militias. The KDP had about thirty-five thousand peshmerga at its command, and the PUK, about twenty-five thousand. In addition, there were about forty thousand irregular peshmerga in reserve. During the 2003 war in Iraq, peshmerga enthusiastically joined the American forces, fighting with the same weaponry they had used for decades, and after the war, plans were to incorporate them into a new Iraqi army.

At the time of my visit, the PUK militia also had a new contingent, composed of about five hundred women peshmerga. Established on November 11, 1996, the unit had two main goals, its commander, Rezan Ras.h.i.+d, told me: one, to be a fighting force, and two, to change the "reactionary mentality of tradition and Islam" toward women in Kurdistan.