Kosrat Rasul Ali emerged as a senior military figure during one of the most difficult periods of the Kurdish armed struggle against the Iraqi Ba'athist government. The conflict unfolded against the wider background of the Iran–Iraq War, Baghdad's counterinsurgency campaigns in Kurdistan and the increasingly severe measures directed against Kurdish opposition forces and civilian communities. By the early 1980s, Kosrat Rasul had moved from underground political organization into major military responsibilities within the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
In 1984, Kosrat Rasul assumed responsibility for the PUK's Fourth Malband, a regional political and military command covering a strategically important operational area. The command established a major presence in the Smaquli Valley in the Khushnawati region, with Smaquli Saruchawa becoming one of its principal bases. His responsibilities went far beyond commanding individual battles. He was involved in organizing Peshmerga forces, coordinating operations, maintaining communications between units and sustaining a permanent armed presence across the region.
Smaquli became particularly closely associated with his command. In 1985, he was seriously wounded during an Iraqi aerial attack on Smaquli Saruchawa and was subsequently treated in the nearby village of Suse. Despite his injuries, he returned to his military responsibilities. Following the reorganization of the Third and Fourth Malbands in 1986, Kosrat Rasul assumed responsibility for the reorganized Third Malband, remaining one of the PUK's most important regional field commanders during the second half of the decade. Forces operating under his command took part in numerous operations against Iraqi government positions and Ba'athist institutions across the Erbil region, including areas around Taqtaq, Degala, Hiran and Smaquli. These campaigns helped establish his reputation not merely as a battlefield fighter, but as a commander capable of directing sustained military operations over a wide area.
One of the most symbolically important operations associated with Kosrat Rasul's command was the seizure of Sari Rash. The mountain complex was closely associated with Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership and contained a heavily protected government and palace compound. Because of its location, fortifications and political importance, local communities regarded Sari Rash as an exceptionally difficult target. It was widely considered a position that the Peshmerga would be unable to penetrate.
Forces operating under Kosrat Rasul's regional command nevertheless succeeded in reaching and taking the complex. Militarily, the operation demonstrated that Kurdish forces could strike a heavily protected position linked directly to the highest levels of the Iraqi government. Symbolically, it challenged the image of Ba'athist power and the belief that Saddam Hussein's most protected installations were beyond the reach of the Peshmerga. The later history of Sari Rash reflects the political transformation of the Kurdistan Region itself. The wider Salahaddin–Sari Rash area subsequently became closely associated with the leadership and headquarters structures of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). A location that had once represented the authority of Saddam Hussein's government thus became part of the political center of the autonomous Kurdistan Region.
The final years of the 80s decade were marked by an increasingly destructive confrontation between the Iraqi state and the Kurdish movement. Baghdad intensified military operations against Peshmerga forces as well as the rural communities and villages in which they operated. This culminated in the Anfal Campaign of 1988, during which large areas of Iraqi Kurdistan were subjected to village destruction, forced displacement, disappearances and mass killing. Kosrat Rasul and other Peshmerga commanders therefore operated in an environment in which the Kurdish armed struggle had become inseparable from the survival of entire communities. The military experience accumulated during these years would become particularly important when the Kurdish population rose against the Ba'athist government in 1991.
The Kurdish Uprising of March 1991, commonly known as Raparin, became one of the defining moments of Kosrat Rasul's military career. Following Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War, rebellion spread throughout both southern and northern Iraq. In Kurdistan, popular uprisings were combined with coordinated Peshmerga operations aimed at dismantling Ba'athist control over the major Kurdish cities. Kosrat Rasul was among the senior commanders involved in planning and coordinating the uprising. Drawing on the military networks and command structures developed during the 1980s, forces under his leadership and operational direction played a major role in the campaigns that liberated Erbil, Shaqlawa, Kirkuk and surrounding areas from Ba'athist control.
Erbil became one of the central objectives of the uprising. The campaign brought together organized Peshmerga forces and large-scale participation by the local population. Government institutions and security structures collapsed as Kurdish forces entered the city, ending direct Ba'athist control. Kosrat Rasul's role in the liberation of Erbil became one of the events most closely associated with his military reputation. His forces were also active across the surrounding region, including Shaqlawa, as the uprising expanded and Ba'athist authority disintegrated across much of Iraqi Kurdistan. The campaign subsequently extended toward Kirkuk, a city of enormous strategic, political and economic importance. Its oil resources, geographic position and Kurdish historical significance made control of Kirkuk one of the most consequential objectives of Raparin. Kosrat Rasul participated as one of the senior commanders in the operations that brought the uprising into the city and temporarily removed Ba'athist control from it.
The initial victories of Raparin were followed by a major Iraqi government counter-offensive. Baghdad deployed military forces in an attempt to recapture the cities and strategic positions lost during the uprising. The Battle of Kore Mountain became one of the most important engagements of this phase. Kosrat Rasul is closely associated with the Peshmerga defense at Kore, where Kurdish forces resisted the advancing Iraqi military. The battle became an enduring symbol of resistance against the Ba'athist counter-offensive and remains one of the engagements most strongly connected to his name within Kurdish historical memory.
Although Iraqi forces temporarily reversed a number of the territorial gains achieved during the uprising, they were unable to restore the political order that had existed before March 1991. The counter-offensive produced a massive refugee crisis as Kurdish civilians fled toward the borders of Turkey and Iran. International intervention followed, helping create a protected environment in northern Iraq and restricting Iraqi military aviation. The subsequent withdrawal of much of the Iraqi state administration from the Kurdish region allowed the creation of regional institutions, elections and eventually the Kurdistan Regional Government. For Kosrat Rasul, this represented a major transition from revolutionary and military leadership toward senior political office, although his connection with the Peshmerga and Kurdish security affairs remained central throughout the following decades.
The 2003 Iraq War opened another major chapter in Kosrat Rasul's military and security career. Before the fall of Saddam Hussein, PUK-controlled areas in eastern Kurdistan faced a serious threat from Ansar al-Islam, an Islamist armed organization that had established positions around Halabja, Biyara and the Iranian border. At the same time, the United States and its allies were preparing for war against the Iraqi government.
PUK Peshmerga forces had already been fighting Ansar al-Islam before the wider invasion of Iraq began. The conflict involved difficult mountain warfare, intelligence operations and attacks against fortified militant positions. During the opening phase of the Iraq War, Kurdish forces, working with international partners, launched operations against Ansar al-Islam's remaining strongholds. Biyara was one of the organization's most important bases. Its liberation and the capture of surrounding positions substantially weakened Ansar al-Islam's territorial presence and removed a major threat from northeastern Kurdistan. The campaign formed an important part of the Kurdish contribution to the northern theater of the Iraq War and demonstrated the increasingly close military cooperation developing between Kurdish forces and the international coalition.
The collapse of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003 fundamentally transformed the security situation in Iraq. Kurdish forces and intelligence networks became important participants in efforts to locate senior Ba'athist officials who had disappeared following the fall of Baghdad. One of the most senior figures sought by coalition forces was Taha Yassin Ramadan, Saddam Hussein's former Vice President and a longstanding member of the Ba'athist leadership. Ramadan was captured in Mosul in August 2003 and transferred to United States custody. Kurdish accounts attribute an important role to PUK-linked intelligence networks in locating him and associate Kosrat Rasul with the intelligence effort surrounding his capture.
The search for Saddam Hussein became one of the largest intelligence operations of the post-invasion period. Kurdish sources and documentaries describing the events attribute a central role to Kosrat Rasul and PUK-linked intelligence networks in gathering information concerning Saddam Hussein's whereabouts and passing intelligence into the wider search operation. According to these Kurdish accounts, intelligence channels connected with Kosrat Rasul contributed information that helped narrow the search toward the Tikrit and ad-Dawr area. Saddam Hussein was eventually located near ad-Dawr, south of Tikrit, and was physically captured by United States forces on 13 December 2003 during Operation Red Dawn.
The American military conducted the final capture operation, while Kurdish sources and documentaries credit Kosrat Rasul and Kurdish intelligence networks with an important—and in some accounts central—role in the intelligence process that helped lead coalition forces to Saddam Hussein's location. The episode consequently became another significant part of Kosrat Rasul's post-1991 military and intelligence record.
The expansion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) across Iraq in 2014 created one of the most serious military crises the Kurdistan Region had faced since 1991. Following the fall of Mosul in June 2014, ISIL rapidly captured large areas of northern and western Iraq as Iraqi government forces collapsed across several fronts. ISIL territory soon came into direct contact with areas defended by the Peshmerga. By August, further offensives threatened the Kurdistan Region itself and produced a major humanitarian catastrophe affecting Yazidis, Christians and other communities fleeing the organization's advance. The conflict rapidly became an international war as the United States and other coalition members began providing air support, equipment, training and assistance to Kurdish and Iraqi forces.
By 2014, Kosrat Rasul had already spent more than three decades in Kurdish military and political leadership and was serving as Vice President of the Kurdistan Region. The ISIL offensive nevertheless returned him to a highly visible frontline role. He visited Peshmerga positions, met commanders and fighters and became directly involved in supporting and coordinating Kurdish forces across several of the most important fronts. His involvement was not limited to political oversight from Erbil. Forces associated with his command structure participated directly in combat operations against ISIL.
As ISIL forces advanced toward territory south-west of Erbil, Gwer and Makhmur became strategically important fronts protecting the approaches to the Kurdish capital. At the request of the Kurdish leadership in Erbil, forces under Kosrat Rasul's command moved to reinforce these fronts. His Peshmerga units fought alongside Counter-Terrorism Group (CTG) forces in operations against ISIL around Gwer and Makhmur. Together, these forces played a direct role in defeating ISIL positions and liberating Gwer and Makhmur, helping prevent the organization's advance toward Erbil. These operations formed an important part of Kosrat Rasul's contribution to the war and demonstrated that, despite holding one of the highest political offices in the Kurdistan Region, forces under his leadership remained directly involved in frontline combat.
Kosrat Rasul was also closely engaged with the Kirkuk and Jalawla fronts. Kirkuk became one of the most strategically important theaters of the war after Iraqi army units withdrew from large parts of the area in 2014 and Peshmerga forces moved to prevent ISIL from taking the city. Kosrat Rasul maintained a visible presence around Kirkuk and was associated with the organization and support of Peshmerga forces defending the city and surrounding areas. Kurdish forces repeatedly confronted ISIL attacks along the Kirkuk front while simultaneously protecting an area containing major population centers and critical oil infrastructure. Jalawla and the surrounding territories also became heavily contested. Kurdish forces initially fought to halt ISIL's expansion and later moved onto the offensive to recover territory. Across the wider front, the character of the war gradually shifted from emergency defense toward coordinated counter-offensives supported by coalition airpower. By 2016 and 2017, ISIL had lost most of the territory it had captured in Iraq. The battle for Mosul and subsequent operations dismantled the organization's territorial system of control, although ISIL continued to survive as an insurgent and terrorist movement.
Kosrat Rasul's role in this war was particularly significant because it connected two very different periods of Kurdish military history. A commander who had fought the Ba'athist government as a Peshmerga during the 1980s and helped lead Raparin in 1991 was again directly involved in Kurdish military affairs more than three decades later, this time as part of an international war against ISIL.
On 25 September 2017, the Kurdistan Region held a referendum on independence. Kosrat Rasul was a strong supporter of the referendum and of the Kurdish right to determine its political future. The referendum was followed by a rapidly escalating confrontation between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Iraqi federal government. On 16 October 2017, Iraqi federal forces and allied formations advanced into Kirkuk and other disputed territories. Large sections of the Kurdish defensive line collapsed or withdrew, allowing Iraqi forces to regain control of the city and much of the territory that had come under Peshmerga control during the war against ISIL. Kosrat Rasul strongly opposed the withdrawal from Kirkuk. The events became one of the most controversial episodes in modern Kurdish politics, particularly because Kurdish forces that had fought ISIL across the Kirkuk front during the previous three years were suddenly divided over how to respond to the Iraqi advance. For Kosrat Rasul, the Kirkuk crisis was inseparable from the independence referendum and its aftermath. His position placed him among those who argued that the city and the gains achieved during the struggle against ISIL should have been defended rather than abandoned. The events of October 2017 consequently marked the final major military and political confrontation of a career that had begun in the armed resistance against the Ba'athist government and had continued through Raparin, the Iraq War and the war against ISIL.