Serhat Giravî and the impregnable Zagros Mountains

Serhat Giravî was commander in Mamreşo when the Turkish invasion of the Zagros Mountains started in April. His determination at the very beginning of the operation was decisive for the guerrilla offensive against the occupation.

Mamreşo was one of the most difficult frontline areas in the Bazên Zagrosê guerrilla offensive against the Turkish army's occupation operation launched in Avaşîn on April 23, 2021. Seven guerrilla fighters resisted the invading forces equipped with the latest weapons technology in the positions and tunnel system at Hill Şehîd Munzur, which eventually used chemical warfare agents. The commander of the guerrilla unit that defended its positions for ten days against the attacks, which violated international law, was Kamuran Alpsar, who was called Serhat Giravî among the guerrillas.

Serhat Giravî was born in 1989 in the Kurdish province of Hakkari and was one of the brave members of the Giravî tribe who dedicated their lives to the liberation struggle of Kurdistan. He joined the guerrilla in 2011 and spent almost his entire guerrilla life in the Zagros Mountains. During this time, he was always on the front line, especially in the Avaşîn region. On the peaks of the Zagros, he learned guerrilla warfare against the enemy and developed into a commander. People take on the character of the landscape they live in over time. Serhat, like the Zagros Mountains, was upright, indomitable and resistant. With every step, with every bullet he fired at the enemy, he became more like the Zagros, and the mountains held him tighter and tighter.

When the Turkish military operation began in Avaşîn on April 23, Serhat Giravî was the area commander of Mamreşo. The first thing he radioed to all units in Avaşîn when the Turkish troops were airdropped from helicopters was, "Mamreşo will become a grave for the enemy." His determination and this claim at the very beginning were crucial to the course of the invasion and the fate of the defensive offensive. Serhat coordinated the battle waged in the tunnel system and at the same time contributed to the morale of all the guerrilla forces that followed the action of the war. Serhat Giravî, along with Sarya Diyar, Rûken Zagros, Kamuran Amed, Canfeda Hesekê, Zafer Tolhildan and Xebat Aso, who fought under his command, represent the invincible Apoist will.

The Turkish army was helpless in the face of the resistance led by Serhat. To force the fighters in the tunnel to surrender, it tried methods that may never have been tested in a war. It still did not succeed. In front of the tunnel system in Mamreşo, it suffered a loss of prestige and committed a war crime by using chemical warfare agents. The message that Commander Serhat and his companions left to the world after ten days of resistance is: "The Zagros Mountains are invincible to the occupiers!"