Chamchamal, Iraq — On Wednesday, Bestoon Aziz was a mild-mannered primary-school teacher, responsible for classes in Arabic and math as well as sports. Now he's a soldier.
He was awake before dawn Thursday, too wound up to sleep. It was still silent in his village, near this town on the Iraqi front line, so he tuned the radio to the BBC Arabic service. U.S. President George W. Bush was just announcing the opening salvo in the war, the missile strike in Baghdad. Mr. Aziz knew then that the war would really happen.
He fumbled in a drawer for a flashlight, put his cell phone, a handful of antibiotics and some biscuits in his pockets, slung his Kalashnikov over his shoulder and laced up his white sneakers. He flagged down a truck headed for town, and reported to the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. All day long, men like him trickled into the courtyard, volunteers ready to face an Iraqi attack — and perhaps to cross the front and fight south themselves.
He didn't even kiss his sleeping wife goodbye.
"Since we were born, we have all needed to be peshmerga [they who face death, as the Kurdish guerrilla forces are known]," he said. "We all learn how to use guns and how to fight. Living under this tyrannical regime, we are always having to leave our homes, to come back, to struggle."
Mr. Aziz thought it most likely that he would end up fighting in the streets, alongside the regular peshmerga if the Iraqis invaded. But with the jovial mood at the PUK office, no one seemed to think it was very likely that Arab soldiers would be storming down from their positions on the ridge line, one kilometre away. Instead there was a sense that the peshmerga might be marching south in a matter of hours.
The Kurds claim Kirkuk as their historical home, and the Kurdish government says it wants a "fair share" of the wealth from the city's oil fields. In private conversation, some senior Kurdish figures tacitly acknowledge that <ic>peshmerga <nm> will try to quickly establish control there; the amassing of soldiers at the border Thursday did nothing to dispel that idea.
The muddy streets of this frontier town slowly filled with men with guns. A sole woman was visible, peering from the iron grill of her front door. The men gathered on the street corners, in small groups crackling with nervous energy and anticipation. Everyone trained their eyes on the hills, constantly scanning the horizon for some sign of a U.S. air attack that was unlikely to come before nightfall, if at all.
"I have been waiting for this all my life," said Haider Omar, 33, a professional peshmerga. "These are the last days of this regime."
Throughout the day, the Iraqi troops on the hill sent periodic rounds of artillery fire and mortars down on the outskirts of Chamchamal. But the peshmerga didn't even look up from their small glasses of tea when the whump of impact send a shudder through the town. "It's psychological artillery fire," Mr. Omar said. "They're afraid. They are just firing to remind us that they are there."
At dusk, all over town and in the villages in the surrounding countryside, young men lit huge piles of tires on fire. It was the eve of Nowruz, the Persian festival of the new year, also celebrated by Kurds as the anniversary of the overthrow of the tyrant Zohak about 3,000 years ago.
When Zohak's armies were driven out of each village, the Kurds marked the victories by lighting hilltop bonfires, until they covered the countryside. They continue the tradition today with the orange flames and smudgy smoke from the tire fires.
"We have the holiday every year," 17-year-old Sarok Ali said, "but it has a special meaning this year, because we will overthrow another tyrant."
