Kurdish leaders fear Iraq is destined for a long sectarian civil war if Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refuses to step aside.

Kurdish leaders said jihadists would not have grown so strong had they not been able to feed off widespread Sunni resentment toward al-Maliki and anger at his government's exclusionary policies favoring Shi'ite Muslims, the majority group in Iraq.

As they see it, the only solution to the crisis is for Iraq to adopt a federal system.

"If al-Maliki had implemented the Iraqi constitution and allowed a federal system to develop, we wouldn’t be in this mess," said Ahmed Askari, a veteran Kurdish Peshmerga commander and head of the security council of the city of Kirkuk.

"Instead, he banked everything on the army and thought if he had a strong army, he could control everyone, including Kurdistan. But the army has now collapsed," Askari said.