The PKK have teamed up with local peshmerga fighters around Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Source: AFP
EXTREMIST organisation IS is the greatest threat the world faces right now.
And one army is starting to take them down.
MORE: The real housewives of IS
This is the PKK, a group still officially known by Western governments as a terrorist organisation itself.
Kurdish forces on top of Mount Zardak, a strategic point east of Mosul. Source: AFP
A PPK fighter in Makhmur, southwest Erbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Source: AFP
An IS fighter at the Kurdistan Democratic Party HQ in the Christian village of Bartella, northern Iraq. Source: AP
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan) was a small Marxist sect set up in 1978 to fight the Turkish government for Kurdish independence.
It became famous for its band of female fighters, and infamous for raising money through illicit means including heroin and human trafficking, fraud and money laundering. Leader Abdullah Ocalan was arrested and imprisoned in 1999.
In March 2013, the PKK struck a peace deal with Turkey, ending almost 40 years of bloody conflict that saw 40,000 people die, according to al-Jazeera.
The peace process is not yet complete. The PPK is still a listed terrorist organisation in Europe and the US, and the Kurds remain one of the largest stateless ethnic minorities in the world.
But the party has reformed with a new aim — to stop IS.
PKK fighters guard a post bearing an image of jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan as they fight in an intensive security deployment against IS militants in the town of Makhmur. Source: AFP
IS militants have captured and tried to capture much of the semi-autonomous regions of Iraqi Kurdistan, The Independent reports.
Last month, the PKK began sending fighters to assist local Kurdish forces, the peshmerga, made up of fighters from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), with Western backing.
They succeeded in helping defend and retake cities in northwest Iraq and around the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, Erbil.
They also helped the Yazidis escape from Mount Sinjar — although reportedly at a price — and then began training Yazidis in Syria to help fight IS too.
The PKK is famous for its female fighters, pictured training in the mountains of northern Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region. Source: AFP
The PKK are adept at fundraising. They are now doing so openly in the Western world, and governments appear to be turning a blind eye.
"Britain and the other [NATO] states must see us as a friend," PKK Commander Cemshid Mardin told Channel 4 News. "We have fighters from all these countries.
"There are British citizens fighting with us which also include non-Kurdish people."
But there is still widespread criticism of the PKK, and fears their alliance with other fighters in the region could fall apart if the IS threat recedes.
Sakine Cansiz, founding member of the Kurdistan Workers Party. Source: AP
Some say PKK members are brainwashed, with rules banning sex and marriage.
Several Kurdish families claim their children were kidnapped and taken to live in primitive conditions in the mountains between Iraq, Turkey and Iran, to fight for the organisation.
But the PKK argues that members fight under their own free will.
Turkman Budak of the Kurdish People's Summit voiced the feelings of many when he told Channel 4: "At the end of the day, they say our people are dying there. Innocent people. Civilians dying every day and a lot of Kurdish men cannot ignore it."
PKK fighters guard a post in the Kurdish region. Source: AFP
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