Pêşmerge

• 
  A Kurdish Army Peshmerga "Special Forces" Soldier places his AK-74 assault rifle on the ground to pose for a photograph at a river stream located in the countryside near Dahuk.
• 
  A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter holding his daughter in their village outside of Dahuk.
• 
  Kurdish Peshmerga contract guards cleaning their weapons, a variation of the AK-47 with folding butt-stock. These Peshmerga’s are employed as bodyguards and drivers for US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) personnel at the USACE compound in Dahuk.
• 
  U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Charles Holt (left) and Kurdish Peshmerga “Special Forces" Sergeant (SGT) Karzan Girdy, pose for a photograph outside of Erbil. Sergeant First Class Holt carries a M16A2 rifle and Sergeant Girdy is armed with a MP5A3 sub-machine gun.
• 
  Kurdish Army Peshmerga "Special Forces" Soldier armed with a AK-74 assault rifle poses for a photograph outside a mountain-top villa once used by Saddam Hussein, located near Erbil.
• 
  The Kurdish Peshmerga platoon of the newly-formed Joint Iraqi Security Company marches to class, Mosul, Iraq. The U.S. 2nd Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 101st Airborne Division are jointly training Kurdish and Iraqi forces, to become the first self-sufficient local military force.

External links

• Willing to face Death: A History of Kurdish Military Forces - the Peshmarga - from the Ottoman Empire to Present-Day Iraq archive copy at the Wayback Machine by Michael G. Lortz
• Newsweek article speculating on Peshmerga involvement against the Iraqi rebellion
• The New York Times article about the current status of Peshmerga
• Peshmerga on Flickr.