Mount Sertiz is located north of Mount Zozik and south of Mount Hasan Bek at an altitude of 1850 meters above sea level. It is called Mount Tatan on the Iraqi military map and overlooks the Pesha Strait from the north. The leadership of the Aylul Revolution always aimed to protect the mountain from falling into the hands of the Iraqi Army, because the strategic road that passed through the Pesha Strait was an important gateway to connect the Bradost and Barzan regions with the Balakayati region, which was the headquarters of the revolution's leadership.

At the beginning of the Aylul Revolution, on May 29, 1962, Mullah Mustafa Barzani, the leader of the Kurdish revolution, and more than 500 Peshmerga came to the village of Pesha for the first time and stayed there for two nights and were received by the people of the village with hospitality, then they stayed another night in the Pesha Strait to leave for other areas of the Balakayati region.

After the Iraqi Army took control of the slopes of Mount Korek, most areas such as Rawanduz, the Diana Plain, and Badliyan were at risk of occupation, so the Military Office of the Revolution ordered the forces (Halkord, Zamnako, Zakho, Kawa, Sefin, Azmar) to send a battalion from each force to Mount Sertiz, to strengthen the positions of the Peshmerga on the strategic heights, by establishing a defense line to reduce the threat to the revolution's leadership and others. These forces reached the specified location in August 1974.

When the Iraqi Army succeeded in seizing Mount Zozik, it began preparing to seize Mount Sertiz, and its advance reached the village of Sitkan at the foot of the mountain. The Peshmerga forces that were in a defensive position informed the front commanders that the Iraqi Army was advancing towards their positions. As soon as the news arrived, the Peshmerga commanders gathered in the village of Pesha to develop a plan to prevent the Iraqi Army's advance. To this end, the order reached Hamid Afandi as infantry commander and Omar Osman as commander of Artillery of the Revolution to attack the Iraqi Army to defeat their advance and expel them from the area.

The Epic of Mount Sertiz began with the shelling of the Artillery of the Revolution on the Iraqi Army, which in turn heavily shelled the Omar Agha Strait southwest of Mount Sertiz. On October 7, 1974, the Iraqi government launched a plan to attack Mount Sertiz, and the attack began with intense shelling of the entire mountain with army artillery and Grad weapons. And the Air Force planes, which burned the entire mountain with napalm and phosphorus bombs, then managed to take control of it.

But a week later, after taking a break and preparing for a counterattack, the Kurdistan Peshmerga forces, which consisted of a battalion of Khabat forces led by Hama Shamirani and a battalion of Zamnako forces led by Nuri Hama Ali, were able to attack the Iraqi Army and seize the entire mountain and inflict heavy damage on the Iraqi Army, which included more than 200 dead and a large number of wounded. While one person from the Peshmerga forces was martyred and 6 others were wounded. The next day, the Iraqi Army attacked the mountain again and regained control of it, and after two months of fighting on Mount Sertiz, which included four strategic Iraqi military positions, it was sometimes in the hands of the Peshmerga and at other times in the hands of the Iraqi Army, so the Peshmerga forces decided to withdraw from the mountain due to the inequality in terms of military power and combat weapons.

Three days after the Peshmerga withdrew from Mount Sertiz, a message arrived from the Military Office of the Revolution to the commander of the Peshmerga forces on the battle front, to launch a counterattack and seize the four strategic points where the Iraqi Army soldiers were stationed.

More than 200 Peshmerga from the Halkord, Balak, and Azmar forces participated in this attack, which consisted of several battalions, each battalion including 30 Peshmerga participated in this attack led by Hamid Afandi. The Peshmerga attack began on November 15, 1974, at 17:00 with heavy artillery shelling on the Iraqi Army points that began from 7:00 until 16:30, then the Kurdistan Peshmerga forces attacked the military positions of the Iraqi Army with a solid military plan. They were able to seize Mount Sertiz again within half an hour and inflicted heavy damage on the Iraqi Army and killed and wounded many people in the battle, not to mention that the Peshmerga obtained many gains, including 45 Kalashnikov rifles, 140 hand grenades, 7 pistols, 2 wireless devices, 38 flare guns, and 4 machine guns.

Mount Sertiz was of great importance to the Iraqi Army, so much so that after all the successive defeats it received at the hands of the Kurdistan Peshmerga forces, it was still insistent on occupying it. The next day, November 16, 1974, they attacked the four strategic positions again with a special battalion of the Iraqi Army, to be able to reach the four strategic places once again, but at sunset on November 20, 1974, the Peshmerga forces launched an attack on their fronts and seized their positions, but due to the exhaustion of the Peshmerga, the intensity of the successive attacks, and the continuous army shelling, the Peshmerga forces could not hold on to stay there, so they left the fronts that night and the Iraqi Army took control of the mountain again.

In all the Iraqi Army's attacks on Mount Sertiz, they climbed the mountain from the village of Sitkan. On one of the northern heights of Mount Zozik below Mount Sertiz, called Kharomar, where a machine gun for the support force was stationed, it was supporting the Peshmerga operations on Mount Sertiz.

Retaining the summit of Mount Sertiz in the hands of the Kurdistan Peshmerga forces was of special importance. This time, a message reached the commanders of this battle arm from the Barzani Headquarters stating that Mount Sertiz must be in the hands of the Peshmerga. The content of the message confirmed that the Halkord forces must seize the mountain, and then the Sayed Aboush battalion of the Zakho forces would settle in its place. In order to carry out the orders of the Barzani leadership, both the Halkord and Azmar forces were able to attack the summit of the mountain and in a short time the Iraqi Army and the agents (Jash) were forced to evacuate their positions, and Mount Sertiz was controlled again and the Sayed Aboush battalion settled there as mentioned in the message. But this time, the Iraqi Army suffered a severe defeat in front of the Peshmerga campaigns. It had nothing left to take revenge on the Peshmerga forces for all the damage it had suffered, except to carry out intense shelling of the Peshmerga positions on Mount Sertiz. This shelling caused heavy damage to the Peshmerga forces and resulted in the martyrdom of 18 Peshmerga, and 14 wounded in the Halkord force, and 11 martyrs and 4 wounded in the Zakho force, and a martyr and 2 wounded in the Zamnako force.

And because of the successive defeats it suffered in this area, and the beginning of the cold season and snowfall, the Iraqi Army weakened and was unable to resist the Peshmerga and attack Mount Sertiz again.

Sources:

  1. Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement, The Aylul Revolution 1961-1975, Volume Three, Part Two.

  2. Sangar Ibrahim Khoshnaw, Military Events of the Aylul Revolution 1970-1975, First Edition, Erbil.

  3. Ghazi Adel Gardi, A Peshmerga in the Service of Barzani ... Haji Birokhi, Volume One, Second Edition, 2020.

  4. Ismail Gondezhori, The September Revolution in Balakayati, Rojhelat Printing House, 2018.

  5. Interview: Gorgis Yalda Tarkhan, Peshmerga of the September Revolution, Encyclopedia Archive.

  6. Interview, Qadir Hassan Sitkani, Peshmerga of the September Revolution, 31/12/2022.