Who are the Kurds and why does Trump want them to join the war on Iran?

A stateless ethnic group of more than 30 million people, their homegrown militia has a reputation as an effective fighting force

The Kurds are one of the biggest ethnic groups in the world without their own state. Numbering between 30 and 40 million worldwide, most live amid the peaks and valleys straddling the borders of Armenia, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.

Though they link their history to that of the Medes, an ancient Middle Eastern people, the Kurds were left stateless a century ago when the borders of the modern Middle East emerged from the collapsing Ottoman empire. Repeatedly caught in the bloody political competition of a volatile region and often forced to rely on their homegrown militia, the peshmerga, for defence, the Kurds say their tough and often bloody history has taught them that they have “no friends but the mountains”.