Monthly Spotlight: The Next Generation of Barzanis

From the Barzani Watch Editorial Board – For much of its history, the elder generations of the Barzani family have led Kurdistan, with power predominantly held by patriarch Masoud, along with his son and nephew, Masrour and Nechirvan. However, the family’s next generation is already gaining considerable influence in spite of their young age.

Idris Nechirvan Barzani 

Idris Nechirvan Barzani, the son of KRG President Nechirvan Barzani, lives a life of luxury, reaping the financial benefits of his family’s lofty position in Kurdish society.

In 2019, aged in his early 20s, he began his role as the Chancellor of the University of Kurdistan in Erbil. In September 2024, the Firat News Agency reported concern as to Idris’ suitability for the role:

“…Mir Idris Barzani has no connection to academia and is only in his early twenties.” 

Just a year later in June 2020, Idris established a 9.9% stake for an unknown amount in the Kurdistan International Bank (KIB), before selling that stake just 18 months later for approximately $35 million.

Four years earlier, in August 2017, Idris purchased two luxury watches, according to leaked invoices from the Vacherin Constantin luxury watch dealership in Beverly Hills, California. One watch was valued over a quarter of a million dollars, at $294,570, and the other at $49,045. Both were from the Vacherin Constantin Patrimony series.

The invoices also showed Idris’ US address as a 9,384 square foot mansion, with five bedrooms, five bathrooms and a large garden, estimated by Zillow to be worth over $6.5 million in the wealthy enclave of McLean, Virginia.

Areen Masrour Barzani 

Areen (or “Arin”) Masrour Barzani, the son of KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, is an influencer, a newly promoted lieutenant, and is alleged, alongside several of his family, to have authorized “extrajudicial killings, genocide, hostage taking and kidnapping”, all at once.

In August 2024, he completed his training and graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst – a prestigious military academy in the United Kingdom run by the British Army. A month after he graduated from Sandhurst, his grandfather and patriarch of the Barzani dynasty, Masoud Barzani, granted him the rank of lieutenant. Barzani Watch is unable to confirm if his position is ceremonial or if he is currently a full-time member of the military.

In September 2024, the Firat News Agency reported that Areen heads the British International University (BIU) in Erbil. The university is estimated to have cost $100 million to build. Like his cousin Idris, Areen’s position at the university was granted to him at a young age.

Before his time training at Sandhurst, Areen was an undergraduate student studying international relations at the American University of Kurdistan (AUK), where his father, Masrour, is the chairman. He was reportedly the valedictorian in 2023, or the student with the highest cumulative GPA, and gave a speech recalling his father’s dream of establishing a high-quality English-language university in Kurdistan.

Areen is a social media influencer, with over six million followers on Instagram and over one million followers on TikTok. His posts highlight his interests in the military, attending official events with his father, and horse riding. His social media presence is well-curated, painting a positive picture of his life.

Beyond this public life, Areen has not escaped his family’s ongoing legal controversy. In January 2024, a lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for Columbia by a US-based nonprofit named the Kurdistan Victims Fund. The lawsuit names several defendants in the Barzani family, including Areen, who stand accused of authorizing their agents to commit crimes, including “murder, extrajudicial killings, genocide, hostage taking and kidnapping, torture, rape, enforced disappearances, and multitudinous other high crimes against civilians.”

Lina Barzani

While Barzani Watch has been unable to corroborate her existence, Lina Barzani is believed to be the daughter of Peshmerga Major General and owner of Korek Telecom, Sirwan Barzani. Like Areen, Lina is listed as a defendant in the Kurdistan Victims Fund lawsuit with a separate address in Northern Virginia – an approximately 17-minute drive from Idris’ address. 

Beyond that, little is known of her. An Instagram account bearing her name with over 32k followers states that she was born in June 1994, in Arlington, Virginia. An accompanying Facebook account linked in its bio purports that she studied Business Administration at George Washington University in Washington, DC. The account adds that she became a Vice President at J.P. Morgan in 2018, aged just 24 years old. She is also the Founder and CEO of a company named Lina Holding, which allegedly owns 26 companies, a bank, a hospital, two tourism projects, six factories, and 540 apartments. 

The next generation of Barzanis, despite their young age, have already begun to enjoy the benefits of their family’s considerable influence. Through spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury watches, landing at the top of Kurdistan’s best educational institutions in their early 20s, enjoying social media fame, and exploring high-profile business ventures, this next generation now wield considerable power of their own.