Babakir Muhammad Zubair Known as (Babakir Muhammad), a Peshmerga and a Comrade of Barzani to the Soviet Union, was born in the year 1920 in the village of Hesni. He fought in the Second Revolution of Barzan, was one of the Peshmerga members in the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad, and participated in the Aylul Revolution and the Gulan Revolution. He held the Position of (Sar-pal - Platoon Commander) in the ranks of the Peshmerga, and passed away in the year 2003.

Biography

Born Babakir Muhammad Zubair In the year 1920 in the village of Hesni, which belongs to the Mergasor district in Erbil Governorate. He studied in the Soviet Union and obtained an institute degree in the agriculture department. He married Shukriya Yusuf in the Soviet Union, and they had their son Zubair Babakir in the year 1959 and their two daughters, Hadiya. His wife was of Tatar nationality from the Crimean Peninsula in the Ukrainian Republic. His wife, Shukriya Yusuf, and her children were arrested in the year 1963 and thrown into prison by the Ba'athist regime on the charge of accompanying her husband to Mustafa Barzani and him being one of the Peshmerga. After their release from prison, they lived in the Iskan neighborhood and then in the Sidawa neighborhood under house arrest, then returned to the Soviet Union.

After his return from the Soviet Union, Babakir Muhammad was appointed in the year 1959 as an agricultural guide in the Erbil Agriculture Department, then he stopped his job due to his participation in Aylul Revolution, but he rejoined his job in the year 1971 after the March 11 Agreement. In the year 1975, he was transferred to the Barzan Agriculture Department as an agricultural guide. He was fluent in three languages (Kurdish, Russian, and Persian). In the year 1998, he returned with his family to South Kurdistan. He passed away in the year 2003 and was laid to rest in the village of Hesni.

Struggle Pages

Babakir Muhammad was a soldier in the ranks of the Iraqi Army before joining the revolution in the year 1943. He fled from the military, as did the majority of the people of Kurdistan who rejected military service in the Iraqi Army, and joined the ranks of the Second Revolution of Barzan. As a result, on August 19, 1945, all his movable and immovable property was confiscated by order of the Iraqi Military Court.

On October 11, 1945, and after the setback of the Second Revolution of Barzan, he crossed with Mustafa Barzani and his comrades to East Kurdistan. After the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad on March 31, 1946, he defended the Republic within the framework of the Barzan force. He had a brother named Zubair Muhammad who passed away in the year 1945 in the Democratic Republic of Kurdistan. 

After the collapse of the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad and the return of Barzani from East Kurdistan to South Kurdistan, he participated in the battles of Naghadeh and Oshnavieh in East Kurdistan. He was among his Peshmerga comrades, as he returned on 19/4/1947 via (Xwakurk and the Bradost plain) through the lands of North Kurdistan to the Shirwan and Mazuri regions.

After their return, General Mustafa Barzani held a meeting with his comrades in the village of Arkush on 15/5/1947 and gave them the choice to stay or go to the Soviet Union. There, all his comrades decided to continue and head to the Soviet Union. On May 23, 1947, he accompanied General Mustafa Barzani to the Soviet Union. He participated in the battles of Qotur and the Maku Bridge, and after great hardship and severe exhaustion, he crossed the Aras River on June 18, 1947, which is located on the border between Iran and the Soviet Union.

After their arrival in the Soviet Union, on June 19, 1947, he and all his comrades were detained in the city of Nakhchivan in the Republic of Azerbaijan for forty days in an open compound surrounded by barbed wire guarded by soldiers. They were treated as prisoners of war in terms of food, clothing, and transportation. By a decision of the Soviet government, they were later distributed to the regions of Aghdam, Lachin, Yevlakh, and Kalbajar in the Republic of Azerbaijan. On December 10, 1947, they were moved to a camp on the Caspian Sea in the capital of the Azerbaijani Republic, Baku. On the 23rd of the same month, they received military uniforms, and they were receiving military training for eight hours daily under the supervision of officers from the Republic of Azerbaijan. At the same time, they were receiving lessons in learning the Kurdish language for four hours daily by some of their educated comrades.

After the mistreatment of his comrades by Jafar Baghirov, Barzani decided to move his military group from Azerbaijan on August 29, 1948, to the Jarjuk compound near the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, where they continued their military training.

In March 1949, he and his comrades were distributed in groups by train to the collective villages in the Soviet Union and worked on the Kolkhoz farms (the land that people used to rent from the government and then pay a share of it to the government).

After great efforts and sending several letters from General Barzani to Stalin, Stalin finally received a letter in which Barzani spoke about the suffering of his comrades, and he immediately decided to form a Committee to investigate the situation of Barzani's comrades. The Committee's final decision was that they should be gathered in the city of Vrevsky, so he headed in November 1951 to the Soviet city of Vrevsky.

On February 25, 1959, he and his comrades were included in the general amnesty according to Articles (3) and (7) and Paragraph (A) of Article (10) and the implementation of Article (11) under the amended Law No. (19) of the year 1959.

Despite the establishment of the Republic of Iraq in the year 1958 led by Abd al-Karim Qasim, but because of his preoccupation with studies, he returned with his comrades on April 16, 1959, to Kurdistan on the ship Gruzia via the port of Basra in the south of the Republic of Iraq.

He participated in the year 1962 in Aylul Revolution and held in it the Position of (Sar-pal - Platoon Commander) and participated in all the battles. In the year 1975, after the setback of Aylul Revolution , he headed as a refugee to Iran and settled in (Naghadeh) in East Kurdistan.

He participated in the year 1979 in the Gulan Revolution and in the battles of Lolan and Alotan. He was retired in the year 1992, and in the year 1998, he returned with his family to South Kurdistan.

Sources:
  1. Hamid Gardi, Pukhtey Mezhunama, First Edition, (Erbil - Aras Printing and Publishing House - Ministry of Education Press - 2004).
  2. Haider Farooq Al-Samarrai, Dia Jafar and his Political and Economic Role in Iraq, (London – Dar Al-Hikma - 2016).
  3. From the memoirs of the martyr commander Haso Mirxan Zhazhoki, 62 Days with Barzani, The Going of the Barzanis to the Soviet Union, First Edition (Erbil - Enlightenment Press - 1997).
  4. Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement 1931 - 1958, (Duhok - Khabat Press - 1998).
  5. Text of the General Amnesty Committee decision to rehabilitate the martyrs of the Barzan Revolution, Rizgari Magazine, Issue 2, 3, Al-Rabita Press, Baghdad, April 1, 1959.
  6. Archive of the Encyclopedia Authority of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

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