On the Iraq-Iran border Kurdish troops are gathering to fight their own battle against the Khamenei regime

Mountain ranges stand strong here, unchanged despite years of fighting.

They also shelter the Peshmerga, the men and women at the heart of the other war for Iran.

Many are Kurds, an ethnic minority, who are ready to strike back against an oppressive and cruel Iranian regime.

A bus driver, a high school graduate, a cameraman from a regional TV channel. In the rugged highlands separating north-western Iran from Iraqi Kurdistan, men and women from all over the world are gathering for war.

"I will fight for Kurdistan. I will die for Kurdistan," said 53-year-old Behzad Alimohammadi from Bergen, Norway.

"I have a good life in Norway but it's not my country. This is my country. I was born in Kurdistan … I want democracy for Kurds in Iran so we can be free," he told 7.30, while slinging an AK-47.

For almost 50 years, Iran's Kurdish minority has struggled under Tehran's oppressive rule.

Despite making up 10 per cent of the country's population, the Kurds are banned by the clerical government from forming political parties.

And since the 1979 revolution, those advocating for their rights have been tortured and publicly executed.

But generation after generation, their movement for independence has remained strong.

Even the historic "Women, Life, Freedom" uprising that killed thousands of protesters across Iran was triggered by the death of Kurdish university student Mahsa Amini.

Now, US President Donald Trump's unprecedented war on Iran has created a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the Kurds to liberate their people.

As the country grapples with the power vacuum left by the death of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and air strikes continue to obliterate the senior ranks of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), civilian fighters from Kurdish opposition groups are gathering along the country's north-western border, waiting to strike.

They want to take back Kurdish lands but not go as far as advancing on Tehran.

"Iran is very weak and it's falling," said Reza Kaabi, secretary of the Komala Party, one of the most popular Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups.

"Their economy has fallen. They have lost their political legitimacy. They have lost support in their society. And they have been isolated from the international community.

Courage under fire

But while Iran's government is vulnerable, it has not collapsed.

Since the war began, the regime and its regional proxies have launched more than 200 rockets and drones into neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan, where many of the Kurdish opposition groups like Komala are based.

Two of those rockets landed inside Komala's Surdash camp, which housed the families of Kurdish fighters just 25 kilometres from the Iranian border.

Days later, when 7.30 visited the now evacuated camp, we saw a 2-metre-wide crater in the middle of a residential alley.

Children's toys and bicycles were strewn around the hole, along with twisted rocket parts and shattered glass from blown-out windows.

Inside the small homes, which are riddled with fist-sized shrapnel holes, dishes and groceries lay scattered across living rooms amongst debris from the blast.

There were no casualties this time, but if the attack was meant to deter Kurdish separatist fighters, or Peshmerga, as they're called, from launching an offensive on Iran, it failed.

"We are always ready. During this war we are on high alert. When the conditions are right, we will start the offensive and return to our home country," said Wali Rostami, who arrived from Newcastle in the UK to join the Peshmerga.

While Mr Rostami wouldn't confirm how many fighters they have, or when they would strike, he said it was imminent.

"We can't say that it will be tomorrow or the day after, but the situation is telling us that it will definitely be in the coming days or weeks. For security reasons we can't tell you everything," he told 7.30.

Mr Rostami said Peshmerga from Europe, Scandinavia and even Australia were converging at secret training camps in the mountains along Iraqi Kurdistan's border with Iran, armed with AK-47s, sniper rifles, grenades and RPGs.

Powerful Peshmerga women

Many of those fighters are also women, and they were present on the front lines in local battles against Islamic State terrorists in recent years.

At 22 years old, Peshmerga fighter Arina Dariafary greets 7.30, holding her weapon.

She grew up on the Iranian side of the border in the Kurdish town of Marivan, where her family still lives.

She is fighting for an Iran with more freedom, not the repressive one that existed under Khamenei.

"We are fighting for our rights and our land," she told 7.30.

"We don't have any freedom in Iran. That's why I became a Peshmerga. Because our sisters and mothers are oppressed.

"We became Peshmerga to end their oppression."

Ms Dariafary says ending the tyranny of the regime in Kurdish cities is her goal and it will take the young woman wherever she needs to go.

"I have joined to fight, to achieve my rights, and I'm ready to fight whenever they tell me to," she said.

Despite their intentions, it is difficult to fathom how a poorly equipped and loosely structured civilian force can take on the might of the Iranian military without substantial backing from Israel or the United States.

Israel's air force has been pummelling Iranian military and law enforcement targets in the largely Kurdish region in Iran's north-west, attempting to open the way for Kurdish forces to enter the country.

But just 24 hours after reports from Washington DC that the CIA was working to mobilise the Kurds to get boots on the ground, Mr Trump rejected the idea.

"We're very friendly with the Kurds, as you know, but we don't want to make the war any more complex than it already is. I have ruled that out, I don't want the Kurds going in," he said on Air Force on March 7.

There is also resistance from within the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, where Iranian Kurds are preparing their separatist movement.

"This is bad for the Kurds, because Iran has threatened us. They said if the ground offensive starts and they infiltrate Iranian territory, they will attack the Kurdistan region," said Abdullah Sherwan, a shopkeeper in Qaysari Bazaar in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.

"'It's a very dangerous thing to do, because Iran is our neighbour," said fruit seller Aso Wali. "It's bad for Kurds if they get involved."

Real strength is inside Iran

The Kurdish regional government told 7.30 they had no intention of attracting Iran's wrath and would not allow any attack on their neighbour to be launched from their territory.

"We in the Kurdistan Region have emphasised that we will maintain neutrality in the war that has taken place," said Dr Dilshad Shahab, spokesperson for Nechirvan Barzani, the president of Kurdistan Region.

"[The president] held a meeting with the military yesterday and reiterated to all the commanders that there should be no threat to Iran or any other country from the borders of the Kurdistan Region."

But this is not the support the Peshmerga are banking on. They are looking for backing from inside Iran.

"The Peshmerga struggle is tied to the support of the people in eastern Kurdistan. Without the people's support, our struggle wouldn't last a day," Mr Kaabi said.

"We're aware that we shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket and rely on foreign support. We should believe in our own people.

"They are the real power behind this movement.

"Our Komala forces have around 1,000 fighters but we can't give you a number for how many underground members we have.

"We have members in all Kurdish cities inside Iran and some of them have organised and armed themselves for the uprising and to lead the people."

For Salam Rashidi, who has come from Germany to fight, the goal of the Peshmerga is simple.

"Our goal is to end the occupation of Kurdistan by the Iranian regime, the occupation they have imposed on the Kurdish people," Mr Rashidi said.

Credits:

Reporter: Karishma Vyas

Photography: Haidarr Jones

Digital production: Jenny Ky and Myles Wearring

Editor: Paul Johnson

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