After the collapse of the Republic and during their retreat to Iraqi territory, the Barzani Force began a new phase of fighting and clashes with the Iranian army and tribes supporting the government. A number of these battles were a fatal blow to the army and supporters of Iran. One of these battles that occurred during that retreat between the Barzani Force and the Iranian army was the Battle of Sufian. After the success of the Battle of Nalos, the Barzanis learned that a part of the Iranian army force was stationed in the village of Sufian, which is located 10 kilometers south of Nalos. This led the Barzanis to make that place their target. Therefore, at 7:00 AM on March 17, 1947, they began attacking the Iranian army force in Sufian, which was previously under the control of the Mamash and Mangur tribes, who had fled.
Initially, after 12 hours of fighting with the Iranian force, the Barzanis were able to control the heights of that region by utilizing artillery and heavy weapons. In that battle, 8 people from the Barzani force were martyred and 12 were wounded. From the Iranian force, an officer named Reza Qarabaghi and a soldier were killed, and 11 people were taken prisoner by the Barzanis. When the Iranian army saw that they had suffered defeat in Sufian just like in Nalos, they began to carry out a counter-attack by utilizing the Lorestan Cavalry Battalion, two artillery battalions, and fighter jets. As a result of that attack, which was carried out in poor weather conditions, the Barzanis were forced to retreat?!
But here we must dismiss as a lie the opinion of the Iranian mercenary journalist Pasiani, who wants to spread propaganda that the Barzanis suffered defeat in the Battle of Sufian, because he was first and foremost just a journalist who was permitted by the Iranian authorities to cover the events, in a way that most of the time showed the Iranian force as successful and considered the Barzanis as defeated. An example of this bias appears in the Battle of Sufian, where Lieutenant Qarabaghi and a number of soldiers were killed. He turns that defeat into a victory in which 16 Barzani Peshmerga were martyred and 20 Peshmerga were wounded, which in reality had no truth other than lies, because at the time the Battle of Sufian occurred, as discussed, due to the bad weather and rain, the Iranian army force could not move from their positions, and that very factor became the cause of the Barzanis' success.
On the other hand, the journalist Pasiani talks about utilizing the air force in that battle, which we can say was nothing more than propaganda for the Iranian army force, because the planes that were in the hands of the Iranian air force were not advanced enough to be able to fly in poor weather conditions and hit their targets in a mountainous region. On the other hand, no other Iranian source, even the Iranian Army headquarters itself in the book written during the Pahlavi era titled (History of the Fifty Years of the Imperial Iranian Ground Force), sees the reason for the defeat of Lieutenant Qarabaghi's force as the weather in the region being bad for attacking, and also does not mention receiving help from the air force in any way.
Sources:1- Najafqoli Pasiani, From Bloody Mahabad to the Shores of Aras, (Tehran, Joint Stock Printing Company), 1328.
2- Alaeddin Sajadi, Kurdish Revolutions, (Baghdad, Maarif Printing House), 1959.
3- Lieutenant General Mohammad Kazemi. Colonel 2 Staff Manouchehr Alborz, History of the Fifty Years of the Imperial Iranian Ground Force, Tehran, 2535.