Biography

He was born in 1925 in the village of Argosh, affiliated with the Shirwan Mazin district in the Mergasor district of Erbil Governorate. On June 21, 1932, he migrated with his family to the Republic of Turkey. Before going to the Soviet Union, he was married; his wife's name was Gulbayaz Aziz Hamid, and they had a son named Muslih Salim (1948).

 Salim Rashid Salim studied in the Soviet Union and received a technical diploma in agriculture. In 1959, he was appointed as a civil servant with the title of Technical Supervisor at the Sulaymaniyah Agriculture Department. He was proficient in Kurdish, Turkish, and Russian languages. He passed away in 1967 in the village of Argosh and was buried there.

Struggle History

In 1943, he joined the ranks of the Second Barzan Revolution. On October 12, 1943, he participated in the capture of the Khirazok police station, and on August 19, 1945, by order of the Iraqi military martial court, all his movable and immovable property was seized.

 On October 11, 1945, following 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 Mahabad. He participated in the battles of the Saqqez front in the Republic of Kurdistan. He was among the Peshmerga who returned to the Shirwan and Mizuri region through the Khwakurk route and the Barazgir plain through the territory of Northern Kurdistan on April 19, 1947.

After their return, General Mustafa Barzani held a meeting with his companions on May 6, 1947, in the village of Argosh and gave them the choice to stay or head to the Soviet Union. There, all his companions decided to continue and head to the Soviet Union. On May 23, 1947, he accompanied General Mustafa Barzani toward the Soviet Union and participated in the Battle of the Qotur Valley and the Battle of the 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 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. They were guarded by a group of soldiers and were treated as prisoners of war in terms of food, clothing, and movement. Later, by 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 transferred to a military camp on the Caspian Sea in Baku, the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan. On the 23rd of the same month, they were given military uniforms and, under the supervision of officers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, were given eight hours of military training daily. At the same time, for four hours a day, they were taught lessons in the Kurdish language by some of their companions who were literate.

After the poor treatment by Jafar Baghirov toward the companions of Barzani, 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, and they worked on collective farms (Kolkhozes) (lands that people rented from the government and later gave the government's share back). He worked in the Shoy region near Moscow. 

After much effort and sending several letters by General Barzani to Stalin, a letter finally reached Stalin in which Barzani described the hardships of his companions. Stalin immediately ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the situation of the companions of Barzani. The committee's decision was that they should all be gathered in the city of Vrevsky, so he went to the city of Vrevsky in the Soviet Union in November 1951.

After the July 14, 1958 revolution in Iraq and the return of General Mustafa Barzani, on February 25, 1959, and according to both the third and seventh articles and paragraph (A) of the tenth article, and by applying article (11) based on the amended Law No. 19 of 1959, he and his companions were granted a general amnesty. 

In 1958, the Republic of Iraq was established under the presidency of Abd al-Karim Qasim. On April 16, 1959, he returned to Kurdistan with his companions by the ship 'Gruzia' via the port of Basra in the south of the Republic of Iraq. 

 In 1961, he participated in the Aylul Revolution. In 1961, he participated in the Battle of Pires, and in the same year, he participated in the defense battle of Barzan. 

Sources:

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