The Peshmerga are the military forces of Iraqi Kurdistan, formed in the 1920s at the start of the Iraqi-Kurdish conflict. The name means "one who confronts death", and the Peshmerga had fought a series of wars against the Arab-ruled government of Iraq, which had oppressed the Kurds until the formation of the new sectarian government in 2003, which included Kurdish leaders. Since then, the Peshmerga has fought against Iraqi insurgents during the Iraq War, and it has been controlled by the President of Iraqi Kurdistan and his Kurdistan Regional Government, with the Iraqi Army being forbidden to enter Iraqi Kurdistan. Since August 2014, the Peshmerga were some of the most important forces in the fight against the Islamic State, with both the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) joining in the fight. The Peshmerga had a strength of 300,000 at its height, including both men and women, with some Arabs, Yazidis, and even foreigners from Europe joining the group in its fight against ISIS.
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