| Al-Ansar | |
|---|---|
| الأنصار | |
| Leaders | Toma Tomas |
| Dates of operation | 1979 – 1988 |
| Headquarters | Kirkuk Sulaymaniyah Aden (South Yemen) |
| Active regions |  Iraq |
| Ideology | Communism Marxism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| Size | 10,000? |
| Part of | ICP |
| Allies |  KDP South Yemen |
| Opponents | Iraqi Government PMOI PUK |
Al-Ansar (Arabic:الأنصار, 'the Partisans') was the paramilitary wing of theIraqi Communist Party, active between 1979 and 1988.
| Al-Ansar insurgency | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part ofIraqi–Kurdish conflict | |||||||
 Al-Ansar partisans in Northern Iraq | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Ba'athist Iraq | Al-Ansar | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Saddam Hussein | Toma Tomas | ||||||
When the alliance between the Iraqi Communist Party and theIraqi Ba'ath Party ended, a wave of harsh repression against the communists followed. In 1977 the regime launched a crackdown against the communists. A number of communist cadres fled to the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq to escape arrest. By January 1979, the exiled communists had establishedansar (partisan) fighting units. By April 1979 theansar movement was operational. Headquarters of the partisan units were established inKirkuk andas-Sulemaniyah, and bases were established inIrbil. Later, bases were also set up inDohuk andNineveh. The build-up of theansar movement did however occur without the full consent of thepolitburo of the party.[1]
InSouth Yemen, a number of Al-Ansar began their military training before joining the guerrillas in northern Iraq. The training was administered by the South Yemeni government.[2]
In 1980 partisan newspapers in Arabic,Nahj al-Ansar (نهج الأنصار, 'Path of the Partisans'), and Kurdish,Ribazy Peshmerga, were launched. In November 1981 the Communist Party formally adopted armed struggle as a line of struggle of the party and established up a Central Military Bureau as a unified command to lead the partisan movement. By that time the partisan forces operated throughout the Kurdish provinces of Iraq.[1]
In 1982 a Central Military Council was held clandestinely. It was attended by the Communist Party general secretary, politburo and partisan commanders. The Council set up the overall strategic line of the armed struggle. By this time a decentralized command structure had been adopted, enabling the partisan forces more flexibility in their confrontations with Iraqi government troops.[1]
The Communist Party made a deal with thePatriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main Kurdish factions. However, only two weeks after the deal with PUK, the Communist Party shifted its alliances to the arch-rival of PUK, theKurdish Democratic Party (KDP). This shift of alliance was motivated by the willingness of PUK to reach an agreement with theSaddam Hussein government. The immediate result of the shift was thatal-Ansar was put in the line of fire between the warring Kurdish factions. In May 1983al-Ansar forces entered the Pasht Ashan area, a zone that both PUK and KDP claimed as part of their sphere of influence. PUK forces attacked the Communist Party headquarters, and massacred 150al-Ansar fighters and other Communist Party members.[3] A radio station run by the Communist Party was destroyed by the PUKpeshmerga. The PUK peshmerga also seized ammunitions and food supplies ofal-Ansar. Several Communist Party members, including members of the partypolitburo, were captured by PUK. After the attack al-Ansar was no longer en effective guerrilla force.[3]
Within theIraqi Communist Party-Central Command (a splinter-group that had opposed the alliance between the Iraqi Communist Party and theBaath Party), claims were made that the Pasht Ashan massacre had been deliberately provoked by the Communist Party leadership. According to this version of events, the Communist Party leadership would have used the killings to remove oppositional forces inside the party (who called for the holding of a new party congress).[4]
After thePasht Ashan massacre, in June 1987 the movement suffered another severe set-back, as another 150 fighters were killed. The report to the 1998 sixth party congress of the Iraqi Communist Party identified that confusion between the politburo and the local guerrilla forces had been the cause of the defeat.[5]
The June–July 1987 meeting of theCentral Committee of the Iraqi Communist Party decided to put al-Ansar in control of the Kurdish faction of the party after the Arab faction failed to lead it. However, by that time, al-Ansar was largely defunct.[5] According to estimates from the Iraqi Communist Party, around 1,200 of al-Ansar were killed during nine years of armed struggle.[6]
In 2004 an organization of veterans of the al-Ansar, Iraqi Communist Partisans Society, was founded at a conference in southernSweden. The Society has branches both in Iraq and in exile.[2]
