HOW KURDS WERE SUPPRESSED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 15222, 21 May 1920, Page 9

HOW KURDS WERE SUPPRESSED

TROOPS' SCALE WALL OF ROCK' 4000 FEET HIGH. The risings which have taken place m Mesopotamia sinco the armistice and the measures adopted to suppress them are described', m a dispatch from MajorGeneral Sir George F. MacMunh-, Ofticiating Commander-in-Chief. A British force obtained a sensational success on the Baziyan Pass, m which Sheikh Mahmud was wounded and captured, his force broken up, and prisoners released. "Sheikh Mahmud was found to , be holding the Darbandi Baziyan T^ass m the Quara Dagh range of hills 12 miles from Chamchamal, the only entrance into the... hills, ahd a famous pass m which so recently as 1910 a Turkish force had been destroyed," writes Sir George MacMunh." 4 "The hills here consisted of a wall 'df rock, 4000 feet high, with a 'V* shaped gap 1000 feet lower, this gap had been spanned by a solid but now ruined stone wall . _sefuT"as a breastwork. On June 17 Major-General Eraser advanced to Within striking distance of this pass, and it was now impossible to hide his intentions from, the enemy above after driving m bodies of I Kurds.: The next morning before dayI break our troops started to scale the almost perpendi-culaV heights of the Qara Dagh, and were practically on the top when at early dawn the guns opened on the pass. The Kurd 9, expecting a frontal attack m the Turkish style up the roads, were paralysed ,-to find themselves attacked -and surrounded from above. The 85th Burmans smothered them, and by 4.45 a.m. .the whole pass was m our hands, Sheikh Mahmud and his brother wounded and prisoners, and the whole of. his force killed, captured or vanished. Forty-eight of the enemy lay dead on the ground, and well over 100 were captured, which is a considerable result , against mountaineers."