Ahmadawa is a beautiful tourist area located in the Zalm Valley belonging to the Khurmal district in Halabja Governorate, 84 km east of Sulaymaniyah. During the Gulan Revolution the region witnessed many epics and attacks by the Peshmerga who attacked the military bases and headquarters of the Iraqi government forces and dealt them crushing blows, and whispered into their ears a living message of the revolution and the defense of the right of the people of Kurdistan to freedom and the implementation of democracy.

On 1 July 1987, the Kurdistan Peshmerga Forces developed a plan to attack several sites of the Iraqi Army and government armed forces, with the aim of carrying out a major guerrilla warfare operation in Ahmadawa and Hanay Qul. After completing the preparations for the operation, the Peshmerga Forces launched a major attack on the army forces, mercenaries, and the Popular Army in their area of presence in the region, and were able, within a certain period of time, to seize a battalion of mercenaries (Jash) and a battalion of the Iraqi Army and the headquarters of the Popular Army company in the region.

The Iraqi government forces suffered heavy losses in this attack, including hundreds of dead and wounded, in addition to the capture of about 220 soldiers and gunmen from the government forces. During the operation, the Peshmerga Forces seized a large quantity of weapons, ammunition, and military equipment, including more than a thousand pieces of weapons of various types. 

 It is worth noting that the region had been in the hands of the Peshmerga for two years and they retreated and left the place later. After directing a fatal blow that the Iraqi government forces received in this epic, the Peshmerga forces were not spared from losses, as seven Peshmerga members were martyred: (Sardar Hajj Hussein, Sheikh Kamil Faryasi, Gharib Dola Suri, Ali al-Mulla, Kawa Darbandi, Qadir Jabbar, and Hassan Marf).

It seems that the existence of such an epic for the revolution forces had a great positive impact on raising the morale of the Peshmerga, especially in terms of self-confidence and a sense of responsibility. At the same time, it was a great defeat for the army and government fighters, who possess a large force equipped with advanced weapons, suffering heavy human and material losses in every battle and epic. 






 

Sources:  

  1. Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement, Volume Four, 1975-1990 Gulan Revolution, Part Two, First Edition, Roxana Printing House, 2021.

  2. Ahmadawa https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D 

  3. Nuri Hama Ali, The History of the Struggle of a Peshmerga Between Life and Death, Second Edition, Shahab Printing House, Erbil - 2016.