{"id":320825,"date":"2026-03-04T05:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T05:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/320825\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T05:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T05:27:07","slug":"israel-launches-deadly-strikes-on-lebanon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/320825\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel launches deadly strikes on Lebanon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>03\/04\/2026March 4, 2026Trump administration may arm Kurdish leaders in Iraq: Reports<\/p>\n<p><img data-format=\"MASTER_LANDSCAPE\" data-id=\"76207112\" data-url=\"https:\/\/static.dw.com\/image\/76207112_${formatId}.jpg\" data-aspect-ratio=\"16\/9\" alt=\"A Kurdish soldier looks through binoculars in front of Kurdish flags and a tank in 2017\" style=\"padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; max-height: 0;\"\/>Kurdish forces in Iraq (seen here in this archive image from 2017) have been trained and equipped by the US in the past to fight Islamic StateImage: Hana Noori\/UPI Photo\/picture alliance<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/us-president-donald-trump-russia-ukraine-israel-gaza-tariffs-trade-war\/t-19434433\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">US President Donald Trump<\/a> has talked to several <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/kurds\/t-19151587\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kurdish<\/a> leaders in <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/iraq\/t-19037666\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Iraq<\/a> in the past days to discuss the war against Iran.<\/p>\n<p>Trump talked to Bafel Talabani, the head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Iraq, the party said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>It said Trump told Talabani about his further plans regarding the war with Iran.<\/p>\n<p>Trump spoke on Tuesday with the president of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI), Mustafa Hijri, according to US broadcaster CNN.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The <a rel=\"noopener follow nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/03\/02\/trump-iran-war-kurds-iraq\" title=\"External link \u2014 US news website Axios reported\">US news website Axios reported<\/a> that Trump also spoke with Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Why is Trump speaking to Kurdish groups in Iraq?<\/p>\n<p>There is much conjecture about why Trump is reaching out to Kurdish leaders in Iraq,<\/p>\n<p>The Wall Street Journal says that Trump is considering supporting them in a fight against Iran&#8217;s leadership.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"noopener follow nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external-link\" href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2026\/03\/03\/politics\/cia-arming-kurds-iran\" title=\"External link \u2014 US broadcaster CNN goes a step further\">US broadcaster CNN goes a step further<\/a>. It says that the CIA, the country&#8217;s foreign intelligence service, is working to arm Kurdish forces, citing multiple unnamed sources.<\/p>\n<p>Iraq&#8217;s autonomous northern Kurdistan region shares a border to Iran. Several Iranian Kurdish opposition groups are also based in Kurdistan.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kurdish militias, already already an important ally of the US in the fight against the terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, have thousands of battle-hardened fighters in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Iran has also been targetting Iraq&#8217;s Kurdistan region.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"03\/04\/2026March 4, 2026Trump administration may arm Kurdish leaders in Iraq: Reports Kurdish forces in Iraq (seen here in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-320825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}