Who knows for sure. I can't tell if this article, written a few days ago, is speaking in terms of now or a long time ago. US airstrikes obliterated the vanguard of the insurgents as they came within range of Erbil's outskirts. In recent years Erbil has been transformed into an oil-boom town, a base for numerous multi-national energy corporations, including the big American companies Chevron and Exxon Mobil, all now drilling for oil and gas. Prominent US commentator and author Steve Coll argues that the threat to US energy companies was a factor in Washington's rush back to Iraq. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-12/iraq-crisis-who-are-the-kurds/5666482 Here's another article. Seems more about oil than religious wack jobs not liking each other. More like paid wack jobs doing the work of interested parties wanting to take control of certain areas. So if you had a shit load of money and could forcefully take over some oil fields and then sell it, why not... http://www.vox.com/2014/8/11/5988377/kurdistan-oil Interesting that a filled Kurdish oil tanker is sitting 50 miles away from Houston and can't unload. So the entity we're supporting, we're also telling them they can't sell their oil direct because we want to support the oil sales going thru Baghdad to support the Iraqi government yet the government is not paying the Kurds their cut. wtf