Product Code Database
Kūt (), officially Al-Kut, also spelled Kutulamare, Kut al-Imara or Kut Al Amara, is a city in eastern Iraq, on the left bank of the Tigris River, about south east of Baghdad, and the capital of the Wasit Governorate. the estimated population is about 389,400 people. It is the capital of the province long known as Al Kut, but since the 1960s renamed Wasit.
The old town of Kut is within a sharp "U" bend of the river, opposite from the point where the Al-Gharraf River branches off from the Tigris.Naval Intelligence Division guidebook (1944), p. 543 This U-shaped bend almost makes it an island but for a narrow connection to the shore. Kut was a regional center of the carpet trade for centuries. The area around Kut is a fertile Cereal growing region. The Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility, looted following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, is located near Kut.
After a halt of nearly nine months, Townshend then headed up river to Ctesiphon. Following a battle there, the British forces withdrew back to Kut. On December 7, 1915, the Turkish people, under their commander, Colonel Nureddin Pasha, arrived at Kut and began a siege that lasted 147 days. The British cavalry under Colonel Gerard Leachman succeeded in breaking out, but Townshend and the bulk of the force remained besieged. Many attempts were made to relieve Townshend's forces, but all were defeated. Some 23,000 British and Indian soldiers died in the attempts to retake Kut, probably the worst loss of life for the British away from the European theatre. Near the end of the siege, T. E. Lawrence and Aubrey Herbert of British Intelligence unsuccessfully tried to bribe Halil Kut to allow the troops to escape. Townshend, with some 8,000 surviving soldiers, finally surrendered Kut on April 29, 1916. The captured soldiers were divided, where the officers were sent to separate facilities, and many of the enlisted soldiers were impressed into hard labour until the surrender of the Ottoman Empire; more than half of them died. The British went back on the offensive in December 1916 with a larger and better-supplied force under General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude and with steep casualties retook Kut on February 23, 1917.
Kut suffered heavy damage during the First World War, and was almost entirely rebuilt afterward.
In 1952, were irrigated from water provided by the Gharraf Canal. Of this newly reclaimed land, was distributed to small farmers as part of a social land reform program. These farmers received per family and were required to live on the land they farmed. In 2005, repairs and maintenance works were carried out at the Kut Barrage and the Gharraf Head Regulator for a total cost of US$3 million.
|
|
