ERBIL — Four years ago on this day, thousands of Iraqi troops and the Iran-backed militias of Hashd al-Shaabi were defeated by the Peshmerga forces of Kurdistan Region in a fierce and historic battle near Prde, south of Erbil.
After taking Kirkuk through a notorious deal with a Kurdish faction on 16 October 2017, the Iraqi Army and militias, equipped with modern US-made weapons, begun to march towards Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan Region.
The Kurdish forces, under the leadership of prominent leader and then President of Kurdistan, realized the move was part a larger conspiracy to dissolve the Kurdistan Region as a federal and constitutional entity. This led to a heroic resistance outside Erbil.
After a days-long battle with several casualties, the Peshmerga forces repelled the massive army and warded off the threats on Kurdistan.
Besides the courageous victory the Peshmerga forces scored, footages of burning M1 Abrams, which the US had originally supplied to the Iraqi Army for the war against the Islamic State (IS), went viral on social media platforms and became the symbol of victory for the Kurds.
Since then, the people of Kurdistan Region celebrate the day annually to remind the world that they will not bow down to threats, and that they will defend their achievements made by hundreds of thousands of lives sacrificed throughout the past few decades.