By Nasir Ali
DUHOK, Kurdistan Region - Fifteen Kurds are among around 200 Iraqi army soldiers trapped for nine days at a military base near Tikrit, one of the key cities that has fallen to insurgents over the past week.
The soldiers at the base are members of the Golden Contingent special forces unit, which retreated to Tikrit after the rebels moved into Mosul on Tuesday last week, following an Iraqi military collapse that has seen soldiers deserting en masse.
The Kurds, who are mostly from Duhok, said there were originally 50 Kurdish soldiers in the unit, but that most of the others were able to escape.
“We were around 50 Kurdish soldiers but some of us were able to reach Baghdad,” said Sardar Doski, one of the trapped soldiers who is from Duhok. “We were around 30 soldiers four days ago, but 15 were able to return to the Kurdistan Region with the help of some tribal leaders of Tikrit,” he added, speaking by telephone.
Iraq is plunged into its biggest crisis since the 2003 US invasion, after rebels who include militants of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS) stormed into Mosul last week and continue a lightning advance that has them now in Baqubah, only 65 kilometers from Baghdad and one of the last cities before the capital.
With the rebels closing in on Baghdad, the United States said it is sending 275 marines to protect the US Embassy in the Iraqi capital, the largest US mission in the world with several thousand personnel.
The Sunni rebels have vowed to storm Baghdad, where they want to topple the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Washington is also considering air strikes and Special Forces operations against the rebels.
“We are around 200 soldiers in this military base,” said Doski, one of the trapped soldiers in Tikrit. “Our base is surrounded by plain barren fields and ISIS fighters are shooting at us with bullets and mortars on a daily basis.”
Doski said, “We get food by helicopters, but the food is not good and sometimes it is inadequate.”
Doski was pessimistic about his fate and of the other soldiers trapped with him.
“We cannot go to Baghdad and cannot get to the tribal leaders who helped us before, because we are afraid of being captured or killed on the way,” the Kurd said. “We do not know what will happen to us.
“Two days ago friendly forces tried to reach our base and they were accompanied by 140 vehicles, but they could not save us and were stopped by ISIS attacks,” said Doski.
Comments
Rudaw moderates all comments submitted on our website. We welcome comments which are relevant to the article and encourage further discussion about the issues that matter to you. We also welcome constructive criticism about Rudaw.
To be approved for publication, however, your comments must meet our community guidelines.
We will not tolerate the following: profanity, threats, personal attacks, vulgarity, abuse (such as sexism, racism, homophobia or xenophobia), or commercial or personal promotion.
Comments that do not meet our guidelines will be rejected. Comments are not edited – they are either approved or rejected.
Post a comment