After the government of Iraq began to scramble to renege and evade the implementation of the articles and clauses of the March 11, 1974 agreement, as it had been able to reorganize itself militarily during the four years of negotiations, such as rearming and reorganizing the army through the relationship and agreement it had built with the country of the Soviet Union, which they signed under the name of the (Friendship and Cooperation) treaty, to provide military support to Iraq so that this time it could end the Kurdish revolution in a short period. As for the Soviet Union side, it intended to deploy investments in Iraq with the aim of strengthening its position in the Middle East.
Due to the siege by the Peshmerga forces on the Rawandiz garrison of the Iraqi army before the fighting resumed, at the beginning of the fourth month, it withdrew all its forces to the Spilik garrison, and it also moved the headquarters of a brigade it had in the village of Balakian in the north of Gali Ali Beg to the same place.
On April 16, 1974, by Mustafa Barzani the President of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the leader of the Aylul Revolution it was ordered to attack the Spilik garrison west of the town of Khalifan, with the aim of confusing the Iraqi army and capturing that strategic location. Although the Peshmerga carried out the attack, it was not successful due to the strong resistance and the large number of soldiers and advanced weapons of the Iraqi army. In another indication, it is stated that the Iraqi government attacked the difficult area of Spilik, where an Iraqi military brigade was located, which the Peshmerga had besieged. After much fighting and confrontation, the Iraqi army was able to break the Peshmerga's siege, and both Iraqi army forces joined together and prepared themselves for a major attack on Rawandiz.
A battalion of the Peshmerga forces was stationed on Sarchiya under the command of Mirxan Muhammad Amin. After the information about the Iraqi army's advances reached the leadership of the revolution on that front, at the end of April, an order was given to the 2nd Zozk Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Yunus Rojbayani to move its mission to Sarchiya, side by side with the aforementioned battalion, in order to strengthen the defensive line on that flank. That Peshmerga force wanted to reach the designated location from Hawdian via the Khalan-Biaw valley. Their mission consisted of defending the main Spilik-Khalifan road because the Iraqi army wanted to advance from there into the revolution's areas in Rawandiz, Diana, and Balakayati.
It is clear that on the morning of that day, before the arrival of the 2nd Battalion on the Spilik-Khalifan road, the Iraqi army had begun to advance. A detachment of the force that had been stationed there earlier confronted them. In a strong defense, after the martyrdom of five Peshmerga and the wounding of a number of others, they were able to inflict heavy losses on the Iraqi army and force it to retreat.
On the night that the battalion of Yunus Rojbayani arrived at the location, they were very tired and exhausted from traveling a long distance. They asked about the situation; if there was news of the Iraqi army's movement, it was necessary to go up to Sarchiya, but in response, the Peshmerga who had been stationed on that front earlier told them that they had no information about that. By the morning, they saw that the Iraqi army had taken control of Sarchiya. The detachment of Peshmerga that was defending the Spilik-Khalifan road was ordered to go to Panasar at the end of the Sarchiya mountain range, which overlooks Khalifan. After the Iraqi army took control of Sarchiya, a telegram arrived from the Military Bureau to carry out a counter-attack and retake Sarchiya from the Iraqi army. The Peshmerga forces began preparations for the Sarchiya attack. All those Peshmerga who were on their way from Khalan-Biaw to Panasar to launch the Sarchiya attack from there were targeted throughout the day by Iraqi planes that were circling in the sky of the area.
As soon as the Peshmerga forces reached Panasar and were busy preparing for the Sarchiya attack, suddenly an Iraqi army force attacked the Peshmerga's positions, but the Peshmerga confronted them very fiercely and destroyed all their soldiers; only 3 to 4 soldiers fell into the hands of the Peshmerga wounded. On the Peshmerga side, there were also martyrs and wounded. Then the Peshmerga began to carry out a counter-attack and implement the order from above, but a problem stood in their way, which was the leaking of information from within the Peshmerga forces to the Iraqi army due to betrayal and treason by one of the Peshmerga officials. The Iraqi army had received the zero hour of the attack, so the Peshmerga's attack failed.
After the Peshmerga's failure, the commanders of that battle front requested the revolution's leadership to shell the Spilik garrison because it contained many soldiers and they were preparing for an attack and advance. The revolution's leadership considered this an important activity and directly instructed the commander of the revolution's artillery, Hali Dolamari, to shell the Spilik garrison. Within one night, they brought two cannons to Khalan and Biaw, and on Bradost mountain, the artillery commander and the commander of the 2nd Zozk Battalion were observing the shelling. With the sunrise, the artillery was ordered to start working. After intense shelling, very large damage was caused to the garrison as a result of the explosion of the ammunition depot and the fuel storage area inside the garrison.
Sources:
1. Ibrahim Jalal, Southern Kurdistan and the Aylul Revolution, Building and Collapse, 1961-1975, Fourth Edition, 2021.
2. Kurds and Kurdistan in American Secret Documents, prepared by Lokman Meho, translated from English by Wrya Rahmani, Rojhalat Printing House, Erbil, 2009.
3. Sangar Ibrahim Khoshnaw, Military Events of the Aylul Revolution 1970-1975, First Edition, Erbil, 2022.
4. Interview with Qadir Hassan Sitkani, a Peshmerga of the Aylul Revolution, 31/12/2022.
5. Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement, Volume Three, Part Two, First Edition, Erbil 2004.