Al-Qaeda Kurdish Battalions


al-Qaeda's Kurdish Battalions is a militant Islamist organization, primarily active in the northern Iran–Iraq border. It is the Kurdish branch of al-Qaeda that has launched several attacks on the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq. The group was classified as a terrorist organization by the US State Department on January 1, 2012.

Formation

AQKB was founded in 2007, after the apparent disbandment of Ansar al-Islam, another al-Qaeda-affiliated group. The group is considered to be relatively small, but it has camps in the Iranian towns of Mariwan and Sanandaj.

Attacks

The group has launched several attacks, including its largest one being against KRG's Ministry of Interior in Erbil that killed 19 people in May 2007. AQKB killed 7 border guards and one PUK security officer in Penjwan in July 2007. In September 2010, two police officers were hurt by a failed suicide attack in Sulaymaniyah.