After the battle of Zawita from 5 to 6 December 1961, in which the Peshmerga forces achieved a great victory, after inflicting heavy damage on the army and the mercenaries, this led to the Peshmerga's control over the Sarsink sub-district and the Zawita valley. The leader Barzani was present at that time in the village of Kishki when he received news that the Iraqi Army forces were moving significantly and intended to launch a wide-scale attack in order to open the Sarsink road and regain control of the area.
Preparations
On 12 December 1961, the government forces, consisting of an armored company and an infantry company from the 3rd battalion of the 11th Brigade, an artillery battalion, a police battalion, the 3rd battalion of the 1st Police Brigade, and 200 mercenaries, left Duhok and moved to Amadiya under the command of Colonel Bashir Ibrahim, commander of the 3rd battalion of the 11th Brigade.
Barzani directly supervised the battle front and divided his forces into several defensive positions from Merga Drez to the village of Lomana and from the village of Kavlasni to the village of Upper Bagira. The preparations took the form of ambushes and guerrilla warfare, relying on a military tactical plan according to which 200 Peshmerga were deployed under the command of Mulla Shini Qurtas Bidaruni on both sides of the road from Qantara to the head of Suwaratuka. Also, 200 Peshmerga forces were deployed under the command of Hasso Mirxan Dolamari on both sides of the road between Guri Gavana and Mangish, thus keeping these two main roads under the full control of the Peshmerga forces.
After Barzani was informed of the arrival of large government forces, he ordered the Peshmerga forces to set an ambush in the turns of Lomana. When the force arrived, it fell into the Peshmerga's ambush and no one escaped; some were killed, wounded, or captured. The Peshmerga forces seized all the military equipment. It is worth noting that the weather was in favor of the Peshmerga during the difficult confrontation; it was a cold day, and fog covered the entire area. The warplanes could not bomb the Peshmerga positions because they could not distinguish between the Peshmerga and the soldiers due to the weather and their proximity to each other, so they flew over the area in vain.
Enemy losses and Peshmerga gains
The battle resulted in heavy human and material losses in the government ranks, as hundreds of Iraqi Army soldiers, most of them policemen, were killed and captured, and 76 trucks were burned and seized on the battlefield. The Peshmerga's gains included the seizure of a large quantity of military ammunition and other supplies, and the collection of 1500 pieces of various weapons that were seized on the battlefield.
Since a number of the sons of the Badinan tribes of Nerwayi, Barwari, Sindi, Doski, and Geli had just joined the ranks of the revolution and became Peshmerga and did not have weapons, these gains made most of them armed. The losses of the Peshmerga forces in this epic were the martyrdom of two members, Khadir Karim Khoshnaw and Hassan Goran, and 18 other Peshmerga were wounded.
It is mentioned that one of the participants in the incident indicated that this great loss of life among the government forces caused anxiety and sadness for Barzani, to the point that he said that the soldiers and police are victims and sons of this people. They came to fight us by order of the government, so do not kill them as much as you can, but wound them. Therefore, the force of Commander Nabi Sarasni, which had prevented their escape, opened the way for them to retreat and save themselves from death by orders from Barzani.
Echoes of the victory in this epic
The importance of recording this victory for the Peshmerga forces in the Lomana epic lies in the revolution entering a new phase, and it caused the spread of self-confidence and increased the morale of the Peshmerga forces in the confrontation and fighting against a large armed force equipped with weapons throughout Kurdistan, including the Soran regions. This was also the first time that the government army suffered heavy losses in lives and equipment. On the other hand, breaking the barrier of mercenary betrayal for those people who were in this framework will put them in a circle of more shame and disgrace and expose them to Kurdistan. This also served as the correct response from the side of the Kurdistan revolution to the statement of Abd al-Karim Qasim and his press conference on 23 September 1961, in which he announced the beginning and end of the Kurdish rebellion.
Another task of this epic is that it included the destruction of a mobile brigade completely as we indicated previously. The soldiers who were killed, wounded, or captured in this battle were each from the people of an Iraqi city. As for those who were released or returned as wounded, they spread the news of the Kurdistan revolution in various parts of Iraq. Thus, the victory showed to friends and enemies in Iraq and Kurdistan that the revolution is honest in raising its slogans, as in addition to releasing 330 prisoners, they were released in the village of Kundka Bani and then sent to Duhok, and the wounded were released after receiving treatment.
After this battle, the government was forced to ask Mulla Mustafa Barzani to negotiate, although the government's desire for negotiations was in reality a conspiracy to bomb the place of the negotiations when the leader Barzani and the commander of the 5th Brigade regiment, Colonel Hassan Aboud, met, in order to end their lives together. However, Barzani's intelligence in changing the meeting place after consulting with the Peshmerga commanders revealed the government's conspiracy to both sides.
Sources:1- Abdulfattah Ali al-Butani, Badinan Region 1925 – 1970, Vol. 2, (Salahaddin University Press - Erbil - 2017).
2- Saeed Hammo, Memoirs of an Infantry Brigade Commander, Baghdad, (1977).
3- Wasfi Hassan Ridini, Dastana Lomana – Kavlasni, (Khani Press - Duhok).
4- Hawkar Karim Hama Sharif, The September Revolution, (Salahaddin University Press - Erbil - 2012).
5- Haji Mirxan Dolamari, Searching for Justice: Another Side of the History of the Revolution in Kurdistan 1943 – 1991, Volume One, (No place of publication - Kurdistan - 2021).
6- Rajab Jamil Habib, Amadiya (Al-Amadiyah) 1921 – 1975, Hawar Press, (Duhok - 2012).
7 - Shawkat Mulla Ismail Hassan, Days in the History of the September Revolution, Second Edition, (Tafsir Office - Erbil - 2006).