Meet the Kurdish guerrillas hoping America will support them blazing a path to Tehran

President Donald Trump has ruled out enlisting Kurdish militias to invade Iran, but at least some of the fighters are betting that as the war drags on, the U.S. may still come calling.

Kurdish fighters inside a tunnel system at a secret base in Iraq’s western Zagros Mountains near the Iranian border. The group operates from hidden positions as it monitors developments in Iran. | Murat Bay

ZAGROS MOUNTAINS, Iraq — About 5 kilometers from Iran, aircraft roar overhead. Are the planes American, Israeli, Iranian? The Kurdish fighter shrugged and urged haste. The final stretch to his militia’s base could be reached only on foot, along a steep path covered in loose rock. Out in the open, everyone is vulnerable.

A tunnel leads to the underground base in a sliver of the Zagros Mountains in northeastern Iraq. The Iranian-Kurdish guerrilla group, the Kurdistan Free Life Party, is careful to keep its exact location secret. Visitors must switch their smartphones to flight mode before handing them over upon entry.

The Kurdistan Free Life Party is in waiting mode, poised along Iran’s western border to move in if a weakened regime opens up a path to strike it. The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO, was granted rare access to the group’s base and its members, who discussed its ideology, goals and under what conditions they’d go into Iran.

© Politico