The emergence of the friendship and cooperation treaty between the Soviet Union and the Ba'ath government in April 1972 revitalized the country of Iraq militarily and rearmed the army with advanced heavy weapons such as (25 pieces of 120mm and 152mm artillery, SAM missiles, T62 tanks, etc...). On July 17, 1973, the Communist Party, under the instructions and encouragement of the Soviet Union, joined that alliance, and at the same time formed a joint defensive front with the Ba'ath Party against the Kurd revolution. Once the Ba'athists saw themselves in the mold of a massive, well-armed force with an international relationship with one of the world's major superpowers, they thought that they were now capable of implementing the long-held dream of crushing the Kurd revolution, so in April 1974 they resumed their attack on Kurdistan.
On April 15, 1974, the Iraqi Army, with the help of Communist Party militants, attacked the Qaradagh region from two fronts:
First front: Consisted of the Iraqi Army moving from Dukan towards the village of Bawakoshin and from there towards the village of Siosinan and later to Qaradagh.
Second front: Were the Communist forces, who also advanced from the Iraqi Army base in Dukan towards the village of Bani Khilan and then onto the Gulan mountain.
It is noteworthy that the Communists used to fight side-by-side with the Kurdistan Peshmerga forces against the Ba'ath regime and other Iraqi regimes, and had a multi-year Comrade relationship with the Kurdistan Democratic Party for the sake of building democracy for Iraq, which they disrupted and ended. In these days, they placed themselves in the embrace of the government and stood in the ranks of the Ba'ath combat army and received weapons from it, turned against their allies of yesterday, and as soldiers of the army, they confronted them and fought against them.
The Peshmerga forces resisted this attack by the government and the Communist Party from three fronts:
First front: A Peshmerga force in the village of Bawakoshin turned their backs on the Iraqi Army.
Second front: They resisted the government forces in the village of Gulan.
Third front: Under the command of Sergeant Bakr Muhyadin, they fortified their positions in the village of Bani Khilan and the Gulan mountain. After the government forces reached the places where the Peshmerga were in a state of readiness, a hot, bloody battle took place between them. The Peshmerga forces confronted them in such a way that they stopped the advances of the attacking force, caused them great human losses, and forced them to retreat to the Dukan military base, from where they had started their movement from the very beginning.
The Iraqi Army did not stop there, and their thirst was not quenched; rather, from April 22, they started the attack again from the Dukan military base, but this time they attacked the Peshmerga positions from three sides in the same previous location. They clashed with the Peshmerga forces and another hot, bloody battle took place. This time, too, the strong resistance of the Peshmerga broke the attack of the Ba'athists and the Communists and caused them to face the same fate as the first time, but in that attack by the Ba'ath Army and their allied Communist Party militants, four Peshmerga were martyred.
Sources:1- Khoshawi Ali Kanyelnji, Memoirs of Aziz Qazi Surchi, Daneshfar Printing House, First Edition, Erbil – 2023.
2- Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurd Liberation Movement, Volume Three, Part Two, Aylul Revolution 1961-1975, First Edition – Erbil, 2004.
3- Karwan Jawhar Muhammad, Idris Barzani 1944-1987 Life and Political and Military Role in the Kurd Liberation Movement, Hevi Printing House, Erbil - 2019.
4- Ari Karim, Several Living Pages in the Aylul Revolution, Khabat Printing House, Duhok - 1999.