(18.10.2016) Iraqi Kurds are expected to play a crucial role in the battle of Mosul, which began on October 17 and is being led by Iraqi forces with some help from the U.S. While some worry about another betrayal, most still hope their reward will finally be independence—or at least greater sovereignty. “The independence of Kurdistan is the right of our people,” Nechirvan Barzani, the Iraqi Kurdish regional prime minister, told Voice of America last summer. “We will decide the extent of our borders by what has been liberated.”