Sipay Rizgari was a Sunni Islamist militant group composed of Kurdish Naqshbandi Sufis, active in the Avroman region of Iranian Kurdistan during the 1979–1983 Kurdistan conflict and Iran-Iraq war, aligned with and armed by the Iraqi side. For the period of its existence, it was led by its founder Sheikh Muhammad Uthman Siraj al-Din Naqshbandi, of the prominent Sheikhs of Tawilah family.
History
Background
Muhammad Uthman Siraj al-Din Naqshbandi, the group's founder, was born in Iraqi Kurdistan and was an Iraqi citizen. He fled to Iran in 1959 after getting into conflict with the political authorities of Iraq under Abd al-Karim Qasim, and established positive relations with the Iranian political authorities of the Pahlavi period. He became friends with Minister of the Court Amir-Asadollah Alam, and his sons took up roles in the Iranian government. He then made use of his relations with the Iranian government to consolidate his influence in the Avroman region. Iraqi Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim was overthrown by the Ba'ath party in 1963, paving the way for contacts to be established between Muhammad Uthman Siraj al-Din Naqshbandi and the Iraqi authorities.
Formation and early activities
Following the victory of the Iranian revolution, Muhammad Uthman Siraj al-Din Naqshbandi fled to Iraq and gathered a force of 1,000–2,000 of his followers, creating Sipay Rizgari, Kurdish for 'the Salvation force.' Muhammad Uthman Siraj al-Din Naqshbandi thereafter declared that the newly-established Islamic Republic was a non-Muslim entity, stating that Sipay Rizgari would repeat the Islamic conquest of Iran, while referring to the group with the nickname Army of Umar ibn al-Khattab. He then issued a fatwa that entrance to heaven is obligatory on whomsoever beheads 10 Pasdaran soldiers.
While Muhammad Uthman Siraj al-Din Naqshbandi himself remained in Iraq, Sipay Rizgari was militarily commanded by his son Madih Naqshbandi. With the help of the Ba'athist regime ruling over Iraq, who provided the group with arms, Sipay Rizgari entered the Avroman region of Iranian Kurdistan in early 1980, forming an alliance with both the KDPI and Komala. For the first months of their existence, they were engaged only in active combat against the Iranian Pasdaran.
Conflict with rival Kurdish rebel groups
As a result of ideological disagreement between Islamist and Leftist Kurdish groups, Sipay Rizgari soon entered into conflict with their former allies of the KDPI and Komala. Komala had been organizing against landlords in Kurdistan, and saw Muhammad Uthman Siraj al-Din Naqshbandi, a wealthy land-owning Sheikh, as a class enemy. Sipay Rizgari, meanwhile, viewed Komala as communist atheists. A number of months into 1980, Komala forces from Marivan and Sanandaj and KDPI forces from Paveh and Avroman attempted to disarm Sipay Rizgari, resulting in the onset of fighting between them.
The conflict with Komala and the KDPI led to waves of defections from Sipay Rizgari and severely weakened it. The group, becoming weary of the large number of members leaving it, resorted to assassinating former members in order to discourage further desertion. One of the group's commanders, Muhammad Ziya Naqshbandi, fearing the group's destruction, even offered to cooperate with the Pasdaran against Komala, though nothing came of this.
Expulsion to Iraq and dissolution
In September-October 1981, the Pasdaran and Kurdish Muslim Peshmerga, a pro-government militia composed of local Sunni Kurds, under the command of Osman Fereshteh, collected 200 fighters and began an operation to clear Avroman Takht and its vicinity. Sipay Rizgari had deployed 300 fighters to, and established several military points in, the settlement and surrounding villages. As a result of the operation, approximately 50 Sipay Rizgari fighters were killed and 200 captured. Additionally, the settlements of Avroman Takht, Bendul, Kamaleh, Zhivar, Belbar, Selin, and Rovar were returned to Iranian control. Iranian forces pursued the fleeing Sipay Rizgari forces as they were retreating from these settlements, and inflicted another blow on them in the village of Keymeneh, forcing them to retreat into Iraqi territory.
In the period following, Sipay Rizgari also entered into hostilities with the Iraqi Kurdish PUK, who opposed the group due to Sipay Rizgari's close ties to the Iraqi authorities. As part of this opposition, the PUK harassed their troops and largely cut off their supply lines. By Autumn 1982, Sheikh Muhammad Uthman Siraj al-Din Naqshbandi had left Iraq for Western Europe, later settling in Turkey. His son Madih Naqshbandi, the commander of Sipay Rizgari, remained in Kurdistan for the time being.