In the summer of 1963, the Iraqi government led by Abdul Salam Arif launched a wide attack on different parts of Kurdistan. They issued a statement via Baghdad radio announcing their refusal to conduct negotiations with the Kurdish revolution leadership and decided to resume a bloody war against the Kurd.

Then they began attacking cities, towns, and villages, and they began seizing all areas that were subjected to military attacks and chasing citizens and killing them en masse in the areas that were subjected to military attacks, because the Ba'athists interpreted that the regime of Abdul Karim Qasim did not fight the Kurd seriously before them, but rather that they could eliminate the Kurdish revolution in a short period.

It is clear that this indicates a fact, which is that Abdul Salam Arif never believed in the Kurdish cause in Iraq, which was reflected in his speeches in which he did not recognize the Kurd and even never used the word Kurdistan.

Before the outbreak of the war on May 20, 1963, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army ordered the imposition of an economic blockade on Kurdistan, and with the resumption of the war on June 10, serious crimes far from moral and human values were committed in many places. It is clear that Sulaymaniyah during that period was more exposed than any other Kurdish city to aggression and injustice by the Iraqi Army, and wherever the army and military convoys were attacked by the Peshmerga, they would come and pour their anger and revenge on the civilian population in Sulaymaniyah. 

One of these acts of violence and brutality against humanity is the Sulaymaniyah incident ordered by the leader Sadiq Mustafa, commander of the 20th Brigade, which was known as the most brutal brigade in the history of Iraq, as it is known that he killed dozens of unarmed citizens in the city, but Sulaymaniyah was a coal burning the faces of the enemies. Five thousand civilians were arrested and (86) of them were buried alive, their only crime being that the Ba'athists brought a picture of the leader Mustafa Barzani and ordered them to insult and disparage him, but they refused to comply with the Ba'athists' orders. It is clear that some of the detainees replied to them by saying: If you agree to disparage your president, then we will comply with your orders. Consequently, none of them survived, as the Ba'athists committed a massacre against them and killed them en masse.  

Source:

Archive of the Encyclopedia Authority of the Kurdistan Democratic Party