The troops from 2nd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment were flown into Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, last week to prepare for a possible deployment of Chinook helicopters on a mission to save families from a little-known religious sect who were stuck on a mountainside.
Together they are sure to dominate the Kurdish regional assembly in Arbil.
The sign outside warns "no guns allowed", a reminder that peaceful though Arbil feels, the danger is still there.
In September 1996, he responded to the KDP's call for help against the PUK and its Iranian allies by sending troops to Arbil, destroying the opposition headquarters there and sending CIA agents fleeing for cover.
This came to an end in 1996, after Mr Barzani invited Mr Hussein's troops to drive out Mr Talabani's forces from Arbil.
The steady crumbling of these sanctions has made the Iraqi Kurds exceedingly twitchy.Muhammad Kasro was curled up in the back of his small hardware shop in Arbil bazaar last month when an explosion interrupted his siesta.
But fratricidal war in the mid-1990s splithehe region into two one-party statelets: the north-west run from Arbil by the KDP; the south-east from Sulaymaniyah by the PUK.
"We don't want to break away from Iraq but we don't want to give up our freedoms to suit wider political games," says a typical student in Arbil, stronghold of Massoud Barzani and his Kurdistan Democratic Party KDPP).
The taking of Arbil by Mr Hussein's all-knowing security forces dealt a body-blow to the Iraqi National Congress and its western supporters.
And the Kurds have several advantages: a well-defined identity and language (close to Persian); a lack of religious strife (most adhere non-fanatically to Sunni Islam).In this section Ever closer to independence A dramatic change Reprints Related topics Syria Iraq war War and conflict Arbil Iraqi politicsFor the birth of an independent Kurdistan, the omens have never been so propitious.
To be fair, the richer of the two factions is building a huge new stadium in Arbil, its "capital", and has repaved much of the road to the Turkish border, which is a boon to the lucrative smuggling trade.
