Because there was hardly any movement anymore at the southern front, the Iranians thought they could better break through in the Northern front in Kurdish Iraq. They broke through the Iraqi defense lines and surrounded the garrison at Mawat. Though endangering the Iraqi oil fields of Kirkuk and the pipeline to Turkey the Iranians didn't get much further than this. In April 1986, some 2,000 Kurdish Peshmerga held the city of Sulaymaniyah prior to the arrival of Iranian forces which took control of the city.[1]