In 1968, Iraq was going through a special political situation, as it witnessed two military coups within a few days. July 17 and 30 were the dates when the Ba'athists overthrew the regime of President Abdul Rahman Arif and Prime Minister Abdul Razzaq Al-Naif, and took power in Iraq for the second time. During this period, there was no fighting between the revolution's Peshmerga forces and government forces until the end of 1968, but confrontations continued between the Peshmerga forces and the gunmen of the old Political Bureau wing, and the matter was more intense, with secondary battles occurring between the Peshmerga forces and government forces from time to time.
In the same series of battles and attacks launched by this group in the autumn of 1968 in the Qadir Karam area in the Garmian region, a large number of their gunmen, supported by two battalions of government commandos, tanks, artillery, armored vehicles, and warplanes, attacked the Peshmerga forces within the borders of the Fifth Battalion's activities. The battalion commander and the Peshmerga forces under him were heading towards the village of Mahmoud Prizad on a tour. At this moment, they were warned by the commander of the detachments via radio to head to help the Peshmerga who were under the command of Corporal Star, because the government and the gunmen of the old political wing had launched a wide attack on them.
After the Peshmerga support forces reached the specified location, they found that Corporal Star's forces were low on ammunition and extremely exhausted, and their ability to resist the enemy forces' attack was weak. They immediately gathered and planned a counter-attack, then attacked the government forces and the gunmen from several sides, chanting the anthem (We Kurds will not be defeated.. We are warriors who will not be defeated). After two hours of fierce fighting, the Iraqi Army and the gunmen were forced to retreat to Kirkuk. The commander of the Qardagh force was informed of the situation via radio, and an order was issued not to pursue them anymore and to stop there immediately.
As a result of this defeat, the government and the gunmen suffered heavy losses, and the Peshmerga forces seized a lot of equipment, including a large quantity of weapons and ammunition, as well as destroying two tanks, one armored vehicle, and two Zil-type vehicles. The bodies of many gunmen were left on the battlefield. The results of the battle and the victory of the Peshmerga in this epic were then presented in a letter to Commander Idris Barzani, who personally oversaw the fighting via radio communications. In response to the letter addressed to the Peshmerga forces, he said: (Blessed are you, you are the support for Garmian), and he also advised them on what they should do to bury the bodies, because he believed that the traitors and agents who were misled were all Kurds, and they should not be considered enemies. Then they invited some of the village residents to help them collect and bury the bodies according to the teachings of the true Islamic religion.
During the body collection campaign, one of the residents of the village of Zarda found the bodies of his brother and his nephew among the dead. He put the two bodies in the back of a truck, and signs of joy appeared on his face. The commander of the Peshmerga forces looked at him in surprise and asked him why you were so happy when you lost your brother and your nephew? He replied that there was one thing I could not hold my head up among the people of Kurdistan for, which was the collaboration of these two men, and this shame will end with their burial. This was the national feeling of an ordinary illiterate person in one of the villages of that country, as he recovered the bodies of his brother and nephew who were killed because of national treason.
It is mentioned that in the period between June 29, 1966, and the Ba'athist coup on July 17 and 30, 1968, the former members of the Political Bureau were with the government, and they began moving against Aylul Revolution with the help of the government. Dozens of people fell victim to this on one hand, and the disregard for the terms of the June 29 agreement on the other. In addition, on November 10, 1968, the Ba'athist regime attacked the areas under the control of the revolution with all its weapons. Along with the Iraqi Army, the gunmen of the old Political Bureau wing, numbering 4-5 thousand gunmen, attacked the Peshmerga forces in the valleys of Jafayati, Siwel, Sharbajar, Sorochak, Halabja, Byara and Tawila, Dukan, Bitwen, Pishdar, and Rania, because the Ba'athists opened the way for this group much more than their predecessors in the regime, to be hostile to the revolution, attack it, and destroy Kurdistan more and more.
Sources:
1- Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement, Volume Three, Part One, Aylul Revolution 1961-1975, (Ministry of Culture Press - First Edition - Erbil, 2004).
2- Ari Karim, Living Pages from the Aylul Revolution, (Khabat Press - Duhok - 1999).
3- Karwan Jawhar Muhammad, Idris Barzani 1944-1987, Life and Political and Military Role in the Kurdish Liberation Movement, (Hevi Press - Erbil - 2019).
4- Ibrahim Jalal, Southern Kurdistan and the Aylul Revolution, Building and Collapse 1961-1975, Fourth Edition, 2021.
5- Hawkar Karim Hama Sharif, Aylul Revolution, Salahaddin University Press, First Edition, (Erbil - 2012).