The Battle of Rawanduz broke out on September 8, 1974, and that battle was one of the most difficult battles. With the aim of controlling the positions of the Peshmerga forces in the Rawanduz area, the Iraqi Army launched a large-scale attack from two fronts on Rawanduz, one from the Gorz Mountain front towards the Balkian village area, and the other from Kork towards Bekhal. That attack continued for a long time, and all kinds of plans were used in it to seize the targets.
On September 8, 1974, the Iraqi Army, led by Major General Ismail Taya Al-Nuaimi, began an intense attack. The attack was carried out from two separate fronts, one from Kork Mountain and the other from Gorz Mountain. Initially, both attacks were repelled by the Peshmerga forces, and the Iraqi Army suffered heavy losses. In that defensive battle, the Artillery of the Revolution led by Hali Dolmari played a major role in breaking the army's attack. Those attacks continued until September 19 of the same year, and the Iraqi Army did not achieve any gains until that day. In the first attack on the Peshmerga forces, the Iraqi Army suffered heavy losses, as it left more than 400 corpses of their dead soldiers on the battlefield, and that heroism was recorded with the blood of six Peshmerga martyrs.
The Iraqi government used a very strange plan to achieve success in those attacks, and that plan was to attack from Korek Mountain towards the city of Rawanduz. To achieve this, one of the Iraqi Army commanders, Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Wahab, developed a tight plan, as he removed all the rocks on the slope of Korek Mountain with large bulldozers, so that the government's tanks and armored personnel carriers could attack from the top of Korek Mountain towards the target. That plan developed by the army never crossed the minds of the Peshmerga, because it was a very difficult, arduous, and illogical task. That plan changed the balance of the war and forced the Peshmerga to retreat to the village of Barziwa, Hendren Mountain, Zozk, Omar Agha Strait, and other places, and that was a great victory for the army.
One of the other plans of the Iraqi government was to attack the Peshmerga forces in the Betwata area, and its goal from that attack was only for the leadership of the revolution to send a force of Peshmerga to the area, and this would reduce the pressure on the Iraqi Army in the Rawanduz area. That was a sound plan, because the Raqa Valley and other parts of the area were captured, and this made the Iraqi Army's pressure on the Peshmerga increase and launch an attack on Rawanduz Mountain. As a result of the defense of the Peshmerga forces, on September 23, a (MiG 19) plane was shot down in the village of Barziwa by (Dushka 14.5) fire, and the pilot, First Lieutenant Safa Shalal, was captured.
In the end, the Iraqi Army regained control of the Rawanduz Valley, and the war became limited to artillery and aerial bombardment of the areas under the control of the Peshmerga, but what was observed was that the Iraqi Army was constantly looking for an opportunity to attack the area, in order to remove it completely from the control of the Peshmerga.
Source:1- Archive of the Encyclopedia Committee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party