Akademik

(Herkis)

   The Harkis are a major Kurdish tribe that historically crossed the borders with their flocks between the Ottoman and Persian empires and also had a notorious reputation for raiding and looting. According to certain old Nestorian accounts, the Harkis had once been Christians and still carried with them the head of one of the several Saint Georges of Eastern Christianity as a palladium in a chest.

   In more recent times, the Harkis were considered josh ("little donkeys") since they opposed Mulla Mustafa Barzani. In 1994, a portion of the Harkis helped ignite the civil war between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in northern Iraq when it switched its allegiance from the KDP to the PUK in return for support regarding territorial claims. In March 2003, Jawhad Harki, the Harki chief and long a josh, defected to the Kurdistan Regional Government on the eve of the U.S. attack against Iraq.