 The most significant of which were Talabani and his closest followers, Nawshirwan Mustafa's clandestine Marxist-Leninist group Komala, and the Kurdistan Socialist Movement (KSM), formed as a result of a series of meetings within the cadres of the Aylul Revolution who took refuge in Iran in 1975, including Omer Dababa, Ali Askari, Dr. Khalid, Ali Hazhar, Kardo Galali, Ibrahim Ahmad, Jamal Agha, Rasul Mamand, Mala Nasih, Abdul-Rahman Gomeshini, Milazm Tahir, Ali Wali and Kamal Mihedeen.The PUK served as an umbrella organization unifying various trends within the Kurdish political movement in Iraq.The PUK received grassroots support from the urban intellectual classes of Iraqi Kurdistan upon its establishment, partly due to 5 of its 7 founding members being PhD holders and academics.