Jash (term)

For the Youtube channel, see Jash.

Jash (Kurdish: Caş or Cahş, literally meaning "donkey's foal"), or "الجحوش" or The Light Regiments or fursan[1] is a type of collaborator,[1] usually a military unit composed of people of Kurdish descent that cooperates with enemy combatants against the Kurdish army, Kurdish rebels, or the Kurdish civilian population.[1][2][3] The term is considered derogatory[1] in a cultural sense in much the same way as quisling is.

History

The Light regiments were first established in the forties during the 1943 Barzani revolt in northern Iraq, then it flourished and start to take an important role in the 60's during the First Iraqi–Kurdish War when General Khaleel Jassim was in the command of these regiments and associated them with many Iraqi Army operations against the Kurd rebels, specially in Amadiya[4] in 1965 and Rawandiz 1966.[5]

General Major Khaleel Jassim Al-Dabbagh the commander of the Light regements first from the right with Ibrahim Al-Ansari third from right in north Iraq 1963

During the al-Anfal campaign, the military campaign of genocide and looting commanded by Ali Hassan al-Majid, al-Majid's orders informed jash units that taking cattle, sheep, goats, money, weapons and even Kurdish women was legal.[6]

The term "Jash Police" was used by the Kurds towards the Iraq's local Kurdish police militias in 1944.[7]

In the latter half of the 20th century, Kurds who became collaborators with the Iraqi government were referred to as jash.[3] The number of jash increased to "as many as 150,000 by 1986" as a method of avoiding military participation in the Iran–Iraq War. These jash then realigned with the rest of the Kurdish people during the 1991 Kurdish uprising. It has been stated by a number of Kurds that "the jash had been completely forgiven".[8]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 McDowall, David (May 15, 2004). A Modern History of the Kurds : Third Edition (Third ed.). I.B.Tauris. ISBN 1-85043-416-6.
  2. ↑ Prunhuber, Carol (January 21, 2010). The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd: Dreaming Kurdistan. iUniverse. ISBN 978-1-4401-7816-0.
  3. 1 2 Mackey, Sandra (2003). The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-32428-1.
  4. ↑ أهم الحروب التي خاضها أهالي العمادية (ئاميدي), جريدة باخرة الكرد المستقلة, 23 حزيران/يونيو 2013
  5. ↑ مذكرات المناضل متي توما, اوراق توما توماس , 07/05/2012
  6. ↑ Jonathan C. Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness?: My Encounters with Kurdistan, 356 pp., Westview Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8133-3580-9, p.231
  7. ↑ Mustafa Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement – Massoud Barzani – Google Books. Books.google.pl. Retrieved 2013-04-01.
  8. ↑ Bird, Christiane (2004). A thousand sighs, a thousand revolts: journeys in Kurdistan. Random House, Inc. p. 81. ISBN 9780307430502. Retrieved January 31, 2011.
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