Biography

Salim Zubair Malla was born in 1920 in the village of Barzan, affiliated with the Barzan district in the Mergasor district of Erbil province. Before going to the Soviet Union, he was married, and his wife's name was Maryam Omar Yasin. He studied in the Soviet Union and received a diploma from the institute in the agriculture department. He also married Jamila Muhammad Mirza in the Soviet Union. In 1959, he was a director in the Erbil Agriculture Department. He had knowledge of the Kurdish, Arabic, and Russian languages.

Struggle Record

Salim Zubair Malla joined the ranks of the Second Barzan Revolution in 1943 and participated in the battles. On August 19, 1945, by order of the Iraqi military court, all his movable and immovable property was seized. On October 11, 1945, after the defeat of the Second Barzan Revolution, he headed to Eastern Kurdistan. On March 31, 1946, he became a Peshmerga in the Barzan force affiliated with the army of the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad and 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 on April 19, 1947, through (Khwakurk and the Barazgir plain) via the territory of Northern Kurdistan.

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 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 to the Soviet Union and participated in the Battle of Qotur and the Battle of the Maku Bridge. After much hardship and fatigue, on June 18, 1947, he crossed the Aras River, which is located on the border between Iran and the Soviet Union, into the Soviet Union.

After arriving in the Soviet Union, on June 19, 1947, along with all his companions, they were placed in the city of Nakhchivan in the Republic of Azerbaijan for forty days in an open-air complex surrounded by barbed wire. They were guarded by a group of soldiers and were treated like 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, Ayulakh, 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, under the supervision of the officers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, were given eight hours of military training daily. At the same time, they were taught Kurdish language lessons daily for four hours by some of their companions who were literate.

After the bad treatment of Jafar Bagirov towards the companions of Barzani, it was decided to move the military camp on August 29, 1948, from the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Charchuk complex near Tashkent, the capital of the Republic of Uzbekistan, where they continued their military training. 

In March 1949, along with his companions, they were distributed in groups and squads by train to the collective farms of the Soviet Union and worked on the Kolkhoz fields (the lands that people rented from the government and later gave the government's share back). 

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, and he immediately ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the situation of Barzani's companions. Eventually, 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 the implementation of article (11) based on the amended Law No. 19 of 1959, he and his companions were covered by a general amnesty. 

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

 In 1961, he participated in the Aylul Revolution and was responsible for the sick and wounded. In 1963, he participated in the battles of Safin, Piris, and Sangasar. From June 12, 1963, to December 20, 1963, his wife Jamila Muhammad and six children were arrested in Erbil by the Iraqi government on the charge that her husband was accompanying Mustafa Barzani and was a Peshmerga. She was put in prison and later settled in the Saydawa neighborhood and was under surveillance.

Salim Zubair, in 1970, after the March 11 Agreement, was the delegate of Mullah Mustafa Barzani in the city of Erbil. On September 29, 1971, he was martyred in a suicide operation in Haji Omaran and was buried in the village of Barzan.

Sources:

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