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136all, coming to accept Iraq (whilst under British protection) as their country. The British soon regarded them as the Levies%u2019 %u00e9lite. During this Society%u2019s %u2018North Mediterranean%u2019 seminar in 2009, we learned of the Kurds%u2019 stalwart part in the Second World War, first alongside the Assyrian and Arab Levy units against Rashid Ali in 1941 and then as paratroops, fighting both the Axis and the Greek ELAS in Southern Europe. The Force was renamed in 1942 as %u2018The RAF Levies (Iraq)%u2019 in recognition of the their loyalty to the British Crown against the 1941 rebellion. The AOC held what he called %u2018The Red Eagle Parade%u2019, where he read a formal proclamation to effect the re8naming and to award the Levies %u2018The Red Eagle Badge of the RAF%u2019; meaning that indigenous NCOs and men were to be privileged to wear what we know in RAF stores parlance as the %u2018RAF Badge, Arm, Eagle, airmen (tropical dress)%u2019; a shrewd, near cost8free gesture, at a stroke placing the Levies psychologically on a level with the RAF. During the war, junior officers of the RAF Regiment began to serve with the RAF Levies Iraq, a process leading to complete RAF control by 1947. The Force, commanded by an RAF Regiment group captain, had 60 British officers and NCOs and 1,900 Iraqis, formed into a HQ and two wings, each of four rifle squadrons. The Force cap8badge depicted crossed khunjars, the curved Levantine dagger traditionally worn by all Kurdish and Assyrian men and by many Arabs, the crossing symbolising harmony between the races, but this emblem had never been formalised. In 1949 in recognition of their new status as a wholly Royal Air Force formation, the crossed khunjars were enshrined as the central device of the new Royal Air Force Levies (Iraq) badge, approved by King George VI. After the Second World War except for a serious civil riot in June 1952 at Habbaniya, when the Levies intervened effectively, Iraq was relatively calm, amid turmoil in neighbouring countries. Then, in 1954, Iraq abrogated the bi8lateral Anglo8Iraqi Treaty of Protection and became, instead, the pivot of the new international Baghdad Pact,