Ghazali Mirxan Ghazali was born in 1923 in the village of Zhazhoki in the Mergasor district of Erbil province. In 1945, after the collapse of the Second Barzan Revolution, he fled with his family to Eastern Kurdistan and settled in the Majidkhan area. He was married and a graduate of the Chachinsky Agricultural Institute in the Russian city of Tambov. In 1975, after the collapse of the Aylul Revolution he was displaced again to Eastern Kurdistan and exiled to the city of Kerman until the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979, after which he returned to the city of Naqadeh in Eastern Kurdistan and settled there. He passed away in 1997.
Struggle RecordGhazali Mirxan Zhazhoki joined the ranks of the Second Barzan Revolution in 1943. He was in the defensive lines on Bradost Mountain against the Iraqi Army, and for this reason, on August 19, 1945, by order of the military tribunal, all his movable and immovable property was seized. On October 11, 1945, after the collapse of the Second Barzan Revolution, he headed to Eastern Kurdistan. On March 31, 1946, he became a Peshmerga in the Barzani force affiliated with the army of the Republic of Kurdistan in the city of Mahabad. He participated in the battles of the Naqadeh and Oshnavieh fronts in the Republic of Kurdistan and was wounded in the battle of Qalatan.
After the collapse of the Republic of Kurdistan, he was among the Peshmerga who returned to the soil of Northern Kurdistan on April 19, 1947, via Khwakurk and the Barazgir plain, from the village of Khwakurk to the village of Argosh and the Herki region.
After their return, General Mustafa Barzani held a meeting with his companions on May 15, 1947, in the village of Argosh and gave them the choice to stay or go to the Soviet Union. There, all his companions decided to continue and go to the Soviet Union. On May 23, 1947, he accompanied General Mustafa Barzani toward the Soviet Union and participated in the Battle of Qotur Valley and the Battle of Maku Bridge. After much hardship and fatigue, on June 18, 1947, he crossed the Aras River, which lies on the border between Iran and the Soviet Union, into the Soviet Union.
After crossing the Aras River and arriving in the Soviet Union, on June 19, 1947, he and all his companions were placed in the city of Nakhchivan in the Republic of Azerbaijan for forty days in an open-air compound surrounded by barbed wire, guarded by a group of soldiers, and treated like prisoners of war in terms of food, clothing, and movement. Later, by the decision of the Soviet government, they were distributed among the regions of Aghdam, Lachin, Ayolakh, and Kalbajar in the Republic of Azerbaijan. On December 10, 1947, they were moved to a military camp on the Caspian Sea in Baku, the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and on the 23rd of the same month, they were given military uniforms and underwent eight hours of military training daily under the supervision of officers of the Republic of Azerbaijan. At the same time, for four hours a day, some of their companions who were literate taught them the Kurdish language.
After the mistreatment of his companions by Jafar Baghirov, it was decided to move the military camp on August 29, 1948, from the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Charchuk community near Tashkent, the capital of the Republic of Uzbekistan, where they continued their military training.
In March 1949, he and his companions were distributed in groups and squads by train to the collective villages of the Soviet Union in the Kolkhoz and Sovkhoz farms. Under the supervision of the (KGB), they performed agricultural work in difficult sections. In 1951, along with his companions, he met the immortal Barzani again. After that meeting, their living situation improved to some extent.
After much effort and the sending of several letters by General Barzani to Stalin, a letter finally reached Stalin in which Barzani described the hardships of his companions. He immediately ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the situation of Barzani's companions, and the committee's final decision was that they should all be gathered in the city of Vrevitsky. Therefore, Ghazali Mirxan went to the city of Vrevitsky in the Soviet Union in November 1951.
In 1958, the republican government was established in Iraq under the leadership of Abd al-Karim Qasim. On February 25, 1959, according to the third and seventh articles and paragraph (a) of the tenth article, and by applying the eleventh article based on the amended Law No. 19 of 1959, he and his companions who had participated in the Second Barzan Revolution were granted a general amnesty. On April 16, 1959, he and his companions crossed via the port of Odessa on the ship Grozia in the Black Sea, passed through the Sea of Marmara into the Mediterranean Sea, and via the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, arrived at the port of Basra in the south of the Republic of Iraq on April 16, 1959. They were welcomed as heroes by the Kurdish and Arab people, and he subsequently returned to Kurdistan.
Ghazali Mirxan Zhazhoki participated in 1961 in the Aylul Revolution and went with the immortal Mustafa Barzani to the Badinan region and participated in the battles of Gali Zawita, Zakho, Mount Matin and Gara, Meriba, Mount Sari Akre, Pirs, Bedaron, and Pirefat. He was wounded in the battle of Mount Sari Akre.
After the establishment of the Peshmerga and the formation and organization of the Peshmerga forces of the Aylul Revolution, he went with the immortal Barzani to the Balakayati region and received the rank of Peshmerga commander. He worked in the foreign and domestic relations department of the Barzani Headquarters.
After the March 11, 1970 agreement, when the Peshmerga were organized into border guard forces, Ghazali Mirxan Zhazhoki became the commander of the Kawa Force and continued in that duty until 1974 and the resumption of the war between the revolution and the Iraqi Army. In 1974 and 1975, he participated in the battles of Safin, Shakrok, Asos, and Pishdar.
Ghazali Mirxan Zhazhoki, in the Year 1979, returns from the city of Karman, Iran, to Eastern Kurdistan and settles in the city of Naghadeh. In the same year, he reconnects with the Peshmerga forces of the Gulan Revolution. The Provisional Leadership of the Kurdistan Democratic Party entrusts him with the task of Commander of the Hamrin Force. As the commander of that force, he participates in the battles of Khinere, Lolan, and Khwakurk in the Bradost region.
In 1991, Ghazali Mirxan Zhazhoki participates in the uprising of the people of Southern Kurdistan. He participates in the liberation of the city of Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk and the uprising. As a tribute to his struggle and fighting for the sake of the Kurd and Kurdistan. In the Eleventh Congress of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in the year 1993, by the President Masoud Barzani he is awarded the Medal of the Immortal Barzani.
Sources:1. Archive of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Encyclopedia Board.
2. Interview with Abbas Ghazali, Pirman, February 6, 2024.
3. Shaban Ali Shaban, Some Political and Historical Information, Third Edition, (Erbil - Rojhalat Printing House - 2013 AD).
4. Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement 1931 - 1958, (Duhok - Khabat Printing House - 1998 AD).
5. Najaf Quli Pessian, From Bloody Mahabad to the Shores of Aras, Trans. Shawkat Sheikh Yazdin, First Edition, (Pirman - Golden Jubilee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party - 1996 AD).
6. Karwan Muhammad Majid, The Barzanis from Mahabad to the Soviet, First Edition, (Sulaymaniyah - Paywand Printing House - 2011 AD).