Jash (), or "" or The Light Regiments or fursan is a type of collaborator, 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. The term is considered derogatory in a cultural sense, in much the same way as the use of the term ''

quisling ''Quisling'' (, ) is a term used in Scandinavian languages and in English meaning a citizen or politician of an occupied country who collaborates with an enemy occupying force – or more generally as a synonym for ''traitor''. The word ori ...

'' in the

Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.

History

The Light regiments were first established in the 1940s, during the 1943 Barzani revolt in northern Iraq, then it flourished and start to take an important role in the 1960s during the

First Iraqi–Kurdish War The First Iraqi–Kurdish WarMichael G. Lortz. (Chapter 1, Introduction). ''The Kurdish Warrior Tradition and the Importance of the Peshmerga''. pp.39-42. (Arabic: الحرب العراقية الكردية الأولى) also known as Aylul revo ...

, 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 Amedi or Amadiya ( ku, ئامێدی, Amêdî, ; Syriac: , Amədya), is a town in the Duhok Governorate of Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It is built on a mesa in the broader Great Zab river valley. Etymology According to Ali ibn al-Athir, the name ...

in 1965 and Rawandiz 1966. During the al-Anfal campaign, the military campaign of genocide and looting commanded by

Ali Hassan al-Majid Ali Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti ( ar, علي حسن عبد المجيد التكريت, ʿAlī Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Tikrītī; 30 November 1941 – 25 January 2010), nicknamed Chemical Ali ( ar, علي الكيمياوي, ʿAlī al-Kīm ...

, al-Majid's orders informed ''jash'' units that taking cattle, sheep, goats, money, weapons and even Kurdish women was legal.Jonathan C. Randal, ''After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness?: My Encounters with Kurdistan'', 356 pp., Westview Press, 1998, , p.231 The term "Jash Police" was used by the Kurds towards the Iraq's local

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

police militias in 1944. In the latter half of the 20th century, Kurds who became collaborators with the

Iraqi government The federal government of Iraq is defined under the current Constitution, approved in 2005, as an Islamic, democratic, federal parliamentary republic. The federal government is composed of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as w ...

were referred to as ''jash''. 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 The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council ...

. The 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".

References

{{Reflist Ethnic and religious slurs Kurdish culture Treason