It is clear that the Peshmerga forces had moved away from the Erbil Plain for a period of time due to the intense pressure from the government and the affiliated militias. For this reason, the government forces and the affiliated militias had the opportunity to act as they pleased in the villages with the citizens and villagers. Therefore, the Peshmerga forces belonging to the Erbil Plain forces, led by Faris Bawa, saw it as necessary to hold a meeting and discuss the Situation. After discussions and exchange of views, it was decided to send a force to the Erbil Plain to carry out some operations and fill the void left by the negligence in the Peshmerga operations.
One of the operations carried out by the Peshmerga during that period was the attack on the strongholds of the affiliated militias in the villages of Girdaz and Garzour in the Erbil Plain. It is clear that this battle and some other battles fought by the Peshmerga with the mercenaries confirm the information that the Peshmerga battles were recently mostly with the affiliated militias and not with the army and other government forces, due to the Situation that arose in Iraq and the Baathists seizing power for the second time through a coup, and their relationship with the revolution was in a state of "no war, no peace".
On the night of May 18 to 19, 1969, the Peshmerga forces developed a tight plan to carry out an operation, which was to raid the strongholds of the affiliated militias in the two mentioned villages near the Erbil-Altun Kupri road, because since their settlement in that area, they had played a bad and unstable role and harmed the residents of the villages and the farmers.
The Peshmerga attack began suddenly at 11 PM and continued until 1 AM. It is clear that the Erbil Plain forces, in one of their previous operations, had seized a military vehicle, armored it, and turned it into an artificial tank. The Second Battalion, led by Corporal Othman, and the Third Battalion, led by Ahmed Haji Ali, supported by the artificial tank, attacked the militias in the village of Girdaz. Because of the use of the tank, they were quickly able to defeat the militias and control their bases on that axis of the Peshmerga attack. The Third Battalion, led by Sayid Kaka, also attacked the village of Garzour, and after fighting that lasted several hours, they were able to achieve victory, defeat the militias, and expel them from the area.
In addition to destroying the affiliated armed force, the attacking force suffered heavy losses in lives and property in the attack on the two villages, represented by the killing of 50 gunmen, the wounding of 30 others, and the capture of one gunman. Among the dead were two affiliated armed officials from Erbil. The Peshmerga forces achieved great gains in this battle in terms of weapons, military equipment, and supplies, such as one 3-inch cannon, three Bren machine guns, 12 Brno rifles, one Kalashnikov rifle, 3 Simonov rifles, 4 rifles with 11 rounds, two English Brno rifles, in addition to a large number of English and Russian Bren machine gun rounds, as well as two cars and one pair of binoculars. As for the losses of the Peshmerga forces, they were one Martyr and four slightly wounded.
After this victory achieved by the Peshmerga over the mercenary gunmen, specifically the next day, May 19, 1969, in response to this attack and as an expression of its anger, the government began intense shelling of the area, as it shelled the villages surrounding the Qushtapa camp with more than 150 artillery shells. Four MiG aircraft also carried out indiscriminate bombing for two hours on the villages of Rasul Baskol, Bistana, and some areas of the Erbil Plain. This artillery and aerial bombardment resulted in three Peshmerga being slightly wounded. On the same night, the night of May 19 to 20, they began shelling the small Bistana camp and the surrounding areas.
Sources:1- Ari Karim, Living Pages from the Aylul Revolution, (Khabat Press - Duhok - 1999).
2- Hawkar Karim Hama Sharif, Aylul Revolution, First Edition, (Salahaddin University Press - Erbil - 2012).
3- Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement, Volume Three, Part One, Aylul Revolution 1961-1975, First Edition, 2004.
4- Sayid Kaka, Memories of a Peshmerga, First Edition, (Ministry of Culture Press - 1997).
5- Khurshid Shera, Struggle and Blood, Memories of the Years of Peshmerga Struggle, Third Edition, (Erbil - 2015).